Jason Eaton, writing at ILM.com, takes a deep dive into the creation of Din Djarin’s starship, the Razor Crest, with the artists who built it across physical and digital space for The Mandalorian series and The Mandalorian and Grogu movie.
The modern Star Wars era is a curious beast for traditional modelmakers. There is a contingent of fans that reflexively dismiss CG work as something “less than,” which I have always thought was probably what the craftsman who used the hand-crank drill thought about the electric drill in the early 20th century. Humans are suspicious of and averse to change, especially when it comes to pursuits they are passionate about. But there are those of us who are curious and want to know more about the digital era, and how it comes to bear in the media we so enjoy. And what luck that there is an example of both worlds working seamlessly together that can be talked about, perhaps as a way to open the hearts and minds of the more skeptical among us, to become enthusiastic about all of the tools and methods brought to bear. This perfect example is in the creation and implementation of the Razor Crest models for The Mandalorian series and the feature film The Mandalorian and Grogu, both now streaming on Disney+.
Perhaps you remember that moment when someone excitedly forwarded the shaky fan clip of the Star Wars Celebration presentation on The Mandalorian where Jon Favreau showed that first shot of a physical miniature of the Razor Crest streaking by the screen? Gleaming in space, a real-world filming miniature, in the 2010s?! It felt like an impossibility. The fan video seemed to echo this internet viewer’s thoughts, as the crowd erupted in cheers. We quickly learned that it was a two-foot miniature built by John Goodson and Dan Patrascu. John and Dan form a tight team, building miniatures for the new era of Star Wars storytelling, and have notably built that initial Razor Crest, the light cruiser used by Moff Gideon, Ashoka Tano’s T-6 Jedi Shuttle, and now the four-foot Razor Crest for the film. They joke that they are the last remaining ILM Model Shop builders, separated by a 38-mile “hallway”.
The Beginning of a Miniature
Goodson is ILM Model Shop through and through, having been brought on board in 1988, and has since built hundreds of miniatures, some of which are personal favorites of mine, like the veritable sea of speeder and podracer study models generated during preproduction for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999). Being well-versed in conservation and preservation, he also is responsible for the care and feeding of many of the Lucasfilm artifacts at the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
Patrascu is a talented machinist with 35 years of experience and has known Goodson since the early 1990s. They officially started working together during the Smithsonian-sponsored restoration project of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise, and Patrascu also machined all of the internals for the 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Aries miniature restoration for the Academy Museum, which features articulated actuators and landing gear as well as an internal armature and sub-structure. Patrascu brings his dialed-in disciplines to the team, creating the all- important armatures, sub-structures, and exacting measurements that filming miniatures require. They joke that Goodson is slowly learning not to submit scrawled glyphs and doodles on napkins to Patrascu, and the latter can let loose a little from time to time.
That original 2-foot Razor Crest came about because Jon Favreau, a fan of filming miniatures, wanted a shot for that Celebration reveal. It was 3D-printed by ILM digital artist Landis Fields on a Form 2, from files created by the Lucasfilm Art Department. This was done under a near-impossibly tight production schedule, and the resin was not quite cured correctly and printed at a lower resolution, which exhibited grow lines. Coupling that with the older Form 2 resin, which was very brittle in nature compared to the more forgiving and “buttery” traditional urethane resin, meant it was a challenging material for Goodson to work with.
This shot request also meant they would need a motion-control (mo-co) system, and ILM’s executive creative director John Knoll enthusiastically built one for this purpose, drawing from his deep well of knowledge and experience with motion-control hardware and software. Knoll built the camera system in his garage, leading the three of them to jokingly refer to themselves as “Three Garage Productions.” Goodson remembers late-night messages from Knoll excitedly showing the latest progress, so it’s safe to say everyone had a wonderful experience building what was needed. They had a Tondreau rig and 15 feet of track, and set up shop in a conference room at ILM’s San Francisco headquarters. It was a definite iterative build. A three-axis head was added, and all “seat of the pants,” like the old days.
At some point, the call was made for two shots at Celebration, so the model would come toward the viewer and then sweep past, meaning most of the model would be visible. While the motion-control system was being built out, the miniature was quickly constructed and coated with HVAC metallic tape, which can be burnished down with a slight loss of fidelity in the detailing but appeared very chrome-like in its finish. It was said to have looked gorgeous but very bright, so while this state of appearance worked for the Celebration shots, it would not be appropriate going forward. Keen observers can also note that the model at this stage did not have the yellow markings. Favreau at one point remarked, “It looks so –” to which Goodson replied, “What, hand-made?” Favreau replied, “Yeah, and it’s kind of – rough,” and Goodson added with a laugh, “It looks great in the dark moving quickly by!”
With the initial Razor Crest completed and deemed a success, the model was taken apart and rebuilt. Patrascu built a three-way internal mount for the model. When possible, 3D-printed parts are usually avoided, as their track record is not well known with regard to longevity and stability. While it’s true that in the past there were no real considerations for the lifespan of a filming miniature after production, there is now the intent to make these miniatures more stable and robust, if possible. There has indeed been a sea change in the way these miniatures are approached, so things are no longer “slapped together,” but built to hopefully last a long time. Goodson personally credits his time and training in the archives for learning these methods.
That initial 3D-printed model was broken down “strangely,” like a ship’s hull, and had a tolerance stack, which in this case is when a warped part affects the fit of the next part and so on. So Goodson made new molds and cast the pieces in epoxy fiberglass, since parts would need to be cut into for the access hatches for mounts and the brittle 3D-printed resin would not hold up.
The engines, however, remained prints because of elements like their turkey feather details. The rebuilt model was again covered in foil and sprayed in Rustoleum black automotive primer. Once dry, the model was painted with Zynolyte silver, and each panel was hand-sanded. This provided a very similar match to the 3D renders, so it visually matched the digital assets.
Floquil paint was used for accent panels, and decals rounded out the overall decoration. This iteration of the model was leaps and bounds more polished than the initial Celebration shoot build. For example, the cockpit had hollow consoles with fiber optics running through, and the little Mandalorian figure was adapted from a model kit. It was held in place with magnets to allow easy placement or removal.
The Digital Side of Things
We have explored a little about these digital assets, but as a modelmaker, you may wonder how the digital world comes into play in the physical world – how so many ones and zeroes become tangible styrene and paint, and how they work together. I spoke with ILM’s Jay Machado and Anthony Rispoli to better understand just that. Machado is a hard surface modeler with a childhood propensity for drawing and started his schooling in illustration and concept art, but quickly found a love for 3D modeling. He was a junior artist at ILM when Harrison Ford broke his leg during the production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Production briefly paused, and Jay was suddenly the senior person in the room, so to speak, and was tasked with building the new Millennium Falcon. He then became the model supervisor on The Mandalorian Season 1 (2019).
Rispoli comes from a computer science background and was initially hired as a technical assistant at ILM. That role involved code writing, render watching, and other computer-based tasks. It is an excellent stepping stone to the role of technical director, which involves lighting and shading on CG assets. Having no background in this field, he learned the craft on the fly, and everything “clicked” immediately. Rispoli worked on the assets for the first Transformers (2007), excited to light and shade the robots from our childhoods. Later, working on The Mandalorian, Machado would build the CG model, and Rispoli would ensure it was shaded and lit properly at the tail end of the process. They are two people in a deep pool of talented artists working on these productions as a team.
For the Razor Crest, they sent finished renders to Goodson and Patrascu, and the intent more and more was to ensure the digital assets reflected the physical assets as much as the production schedule allowed. As the bar on resolution was constantly raised, the imagery likewise improved. I asked about a personal peccadillo I cannot help but notice: when a single ship’s decoration is cloned multiple times across a squadron of ships, and if that was simply due to production schedule constraints. Amused, the response was affirmative, and whenever this has been brought up in production meetings, John Knoll would respond with a variation of, “If the audience is looking over there, we already have lost them.” A fair point.
So how “hero” do you go on a digital asset? Meaning, how granular should the detail be on a vehicle or creature or other element in a shot? Machado and Rispoli explain that it depends entirely on where the asset is in the film, whether it is in the foreground, middle ground, or background. Is there atmosphere in the environment? Is it day or night? These all come into consideration. And who tackles which ship will depend on the strengths of the artists on the team and the team’s size.
For those wondering, they use Linux boxes, and Machado uses a near-off-the-shelf version of Maya, with a few ILM plug-ins. There is also an immensely powerful proprietary ILM tool called Zeno for unified 3D graphics and pipeline frameworks, and real-time tools are also in the mix. ILM initially ran all of the CG work locally, but now everything is based in a central server, and the Linux boxes can be thought of as “dumb” terminals. Rispoli notes that it’s really come full circle back to the 1960s and 1970s with the locked-down local network.
Read the article in full here.
Images: ILM & Lucasfilm
