George had decided to introduce the new villain (Boba Fett) in an animated comic book format in "The Star Wars Holiday Special" that was going to air on TV in December of 1978. Nelvana was selected to produce the completed animation based on our "A Cosmic Christmas", which George liked very much.
At that time, Heavy Metal (Magazine) was the graphic cutting edge for Science Fiction/Fantasy. The decision was made to go with a graphic style based on the artist Moebius (pseudonym for Jean Giraud) whose art was appearing in the French magazine Metal Hurlant (published in the United States under the title Heavy Metal).
Here are the model sheets for Boba Fett (by Frank Nissen, who designed the show), some of my rough first pass poses, and thumbnail sketches. It was a challenge to animate a performance with a character that had no facial features to work with. I had to use hand gestures, head tilts, and body language.
Following the artwork is the animated comic book that introduced Boba Fett. The entire show was animated in 6 to 8 weeks. When viewing this material, remember that in 1978 full animation industry-wide was pretty much dead except at Disney's.
This animated short was the only redeeming segment from that holiday special! Boba Fett was so cool!
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, George Lucas felt the same way.
ReplyDeleteThere was a magazine article detailing the making of this project at Nelvana Animation Studios! I read the whole article at a magazine stand but did not buy it due to the price about 8$+taxes....9$ in all.
ReplyDeleteThere was a cool cel layout of the dinosaur and Fett.
i remember that is was a larger than a normal magazine lengthwise and i think Pokemon was on the cover. There was no mention of the SW anime article on the cover.
This was around 1996-1997.
Any info on this, thanks.
Also thanks for these Fett drawings..never seen most of them.
Hmm, could that be "Animation Magazine"? That was an industry trade publication.
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