LEGO Star Wars - Rebuild the Galaxy
Design Process from Concept to Matte Painting
1st Pass: Moodboard
I wanted to find the interesting silhouettes of the buildings of the city and translate them to simple Lego shapes. We had lots of reference to pull from paying special attention to layouts from iconic movie moments, and details like spare parts and scrapped vehicles that make this world instantly recognizable. Then we get to flip it on it's head and make it a surf town and prep it for an epic battle and the reveal of Darth Jar Jar!
2nd pass: Concept
In an earlier version of the script, Tatooine was covered in snow like Hoth. Here are a few rough passes including some WIP Buildings, vendor tents, SW tech / props scattered about. It was fun scouring Lego bits and other repurposed scene assets parts to populate this set and make it feel authentic and populated.
Building Line Up + Set Dressing
Full ortho lineup buildings designed and built , the larger one re-purposed the geo from another set to get some reuse as a BG building. I reverse engineered the iconic Cantina set and built the other buildings with the iconic Mos Eisley building shape language paired with the detailing and color palette already established in the provided Cantina set.
3rd pass: Proxy / Rough Pass
Deep dive into the script, calling out key story moments and playing with a few different layout ideas. I also have my proxy buildings complete to start populating and building out this world in Blender, making sure it works for the most important moments across all four episodes.
4th pass: Dialing it in / Renders
Angles have been selected by directors, and we are ready to move forward with the chosen 2 for a clean up/ detail pass. Here are my raw renders laid out with a quick sky mockup. We really like the layout of the falcon pointing at the cantina - but ultimately picked the shot that showed more of the Mos Eisley set and boardwalk and did a separate break out design for the cantina.
5th pass: Full Paintover
Full color / texture paintover to options isolated in previous round. Maisha had this awesome idea that we put "TATOOINE" in Aurebesh up in the hills with a subtle nod to Hollywood that we all thought was super fun! I really feel like we got this California beach boardwalk vibe. <3
6th Pass: Final Approved Image
Addressing the notes from the previous round, I provided the wooden boardwalk variant and pushed the “toybox” watercolor painterly sky texture and crumpled paper mountains in the BG.
The are iconic and help sell this location. It was super fun to add the iconic Mos Eisley building shapes but then add the surfer town tiki elements to shake it up the place we all know so well. Also wild to try it as a snow covered area in an earlier iteration of the draft!
Special thanks to my directors Chris Buckley and Maisha Moore and to Atomic Cartoons for the opportunity !
Composited Matte Painting
3D projection/ animated and composited in Nuke, Blender and Photoshop!
For the DMP, I’ve added a dramatic sky matte, and more cinematic lighting and color correcting.
Nuke Working Project File
Blender Working Project File