Who is who?
Working on the artwork of the Star Wars character Vanden Willard was exciting and difficult at the same time. Willard in Star Wars Rebellion was mistakenly displayed with the physique of Bob Hudsol, who was also a rebel general in the movie. These guys rarely appear on the screen, and Hudsol was basically an extra, so no wonder the art director didn't get it right.
Willard in Star Wars Rebellion (1998)
Willard played by Eddie Byrne in Star Wars
Reviving Willard
Unfortunately, there were no usable scenes in Star Wars: A New Hope that I could use for screenshots. We only see Willard from the side in the movie. Also, the actors of the original Star Wars movies don't have high-quality photos on the internet, and most are grayscale. A lot of tweaking in the AI prompts was needed, and working on the results with Photoshop afterward.
Byrne was featured in many movies besides Star Wars, so getting source photos for his character in Rebellion was relatively easy.
Eddie Byrne as Lucky Joe Luckner in The Saint
Eddie Byrne as Father Ignatious in Never Mind the Quality
Unfortunately, there were no usable scenes in Star Wars: A New Hope that I could use for screenshots. We only see Willard from the side in the movie. These old actors from the original Star Wars movies don't have high-quality photos available online, and most are in grayscale. A lot of tweaking in the AI prompts was needed, followed by working on the results with Photoshop. Fortunately, Byrne was featured in many other movies besides Star Wars, so I was able to experiment around with many references.
Early attempts using 10-15 reference images of Byrne
In the first attempts, the 'retro' colors and tones that came with the old reference images were very obvious. It proved to be quite difficult to get rid of the retro look. However, after playing around with the settings a little, I realized that the retro style just _works_ for Star Wars. After all, the movie was made in the '70s!
Final HD rendering and recoloring in Photoshop
For the final artwork, I've maintained a somewhat retro feel. Next up was the body. Willard doesn't wear the standard uniform of the rebels in Star Wars, but I assumed he would wear it in the movie's aftermath. I built the uniform from scratch with the iconic collars and combined it with Byrne's generated portrait.
Final encyclopedia image of Vanden Willard (generated) with Yavin in the back
Close enough! Hopefully, gamers will appreciate this extra detail in the mod. Let me know what you think! Use the comment section below.
