Star Wars | Shadows of the Empire (Part 1)

Work done for James aka Mr Sunday Movies and the enjoyment of all the Planet Broadcasting gr8 m8s.
The project was developed as a series of cinematic still frames with comic-book-looking characters, all slightly animated in 2D to give a sense of motion and enhance the storytelling of the narration.
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The sequence shows the flip side of a discussion that happens in Empire Strikes Back, in which the Emperor discusses with Darth Vader the imminent need of dealing with rebel superstar Luke Skywalker. Unbeknownst to Lord Vader, Prince Xizor is witnessing the conversation and discovers that, in now famous words, it's all about family.
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Thanks to VOLTA for supporting the creation of this project, and to Kevin Demuynck for some valuable sculpting tips.

My creative boundaries have really been pushed as a generalist, as I did every single step of production: concept, sculpting, modeling, UVs, surfacing, lookdev, lighting, cameras, rendering, compositing, animation, editing, and color grading.

"Shadows Of The Empire - A Star Wars Retrospective" by Mr Sunday Movies

Sculpting the Emperor in a stylized yet menacing look was such a great exploratory process!.. and also quite a challenge since modeling isn't really what I do. The pose is a bit stiff here, but it reads well and I could use it in every shot.

The challenge was even greater to create Xizor, who doesn't have any definitive canon appearance.

I wanted to retain Xizor's core alien features without veering into anything remotely goofy. This meant finding nuanced shapes that would make him look dead serious, intelligent, sly, and elegant all at the same time. A strong presence was crucial.

Emperor - Final model - Clay render

Darth Vader - Final model - Clay render

Prince Xizor - Final model - Clay render

Emperor - Early lookdev test. The idea was there, but didn't feel fully realized yet. The hatching was too subtle and lacked visual balance with bolder details. The mix of cel-shading and SSS for the skin was already quite successful at that stage though.

Emperor - Final look dev & surfacing - Close up

The various passes that are comprised in the final output of the Emperor.

The Emperor's shading graph. Many effects are screen-dependent, so textures like hatching (green) and fabric pattern (orange) have their scale driven by a single value multiplier (blue) that changes for each shot depending on the camera/subject distance.

Fun fact: this fabric is actually a small pattern made of Tie Fighters. Evil is in the details.

Darth Vader pose exploration

Early throne room blocking with key elements and proper scale.