My first project as a professional in the film industry! Excitement! Glamour!

• Learned a lot about production practices, and how doing the best you can is different from doing your best. Example: I was asked to create a digital double of young Boba Fett, and what how long I thought it would take. This was late in the production, so I asked what shots it would be needed in — it was just one shot, for Boba to be seen in the cockpit as Firespray (Formerly Slave One) flies by. A proper digital double was 6-8 weeks; we felt we could do what was needed for that shot in a day. Lumped in some primitives, projected a texture, no animation, and got it into that night’s render. Success!

My first task was to build Jar Jar Binks’s clothing, under the supervision of the illustrious James Tooley. James is a consummate artist, and an incredibly generous technologist.

This was long before Marvelous Designer, so everything was build and seamed manually. I studied tailor’s patterns and tried to build the CG version so that it would fold in the same ways. James guided me to watch out for intersections, collision volumes and the best default distances for them, rest frames, etc.

Eventually i learned to do a few simulations myself, to better understand what’s needed during CG cloth construction.

My proudest achievement for the film was the opportunity to build the Acklay — a six-legged green lobstercrab with three eyes. The third eye was a last-minute request from George. We tried to integrate it as best we could.

The Acklay is featured in the arena battle sequence and is a wonderfully complex organic creature. I was thrilled!