I made several new friends at WonderFest. One fellow in particular befriended me and my new group of talented friends. Lorne Peterson is one of the most gracious, kind and down-to-earth guys I've ever met in the industry. We were part of his 'inner circle' at the fest. I am so grateful for the invitation to join this group for this unique opportunity. Mr. Peterson gave us all personal attention and examined and admired our studio scale work.
Lorne was gracious enough to answer all the model questions our group put to him. We sat with him for hours on end at dinners in local restaurants. Charles and I even had exclusive time with him at breakfast. I showed him pictures of all my star destroyers and other models I made for the movie '77 (5-25-77). I even showed him pictures of me as him for the ILM scenes of the film. He got a kick out of that.
Lorne talks to you as an equal, as one of the guys. He is always eager to share information about how the original models were built. Naturally, I had a few questions about the ANH SD. I asked him everything from why was it called the '3-footer' to which side of the eggs were used for the engines. I learned A LOT that will help me in my continued star destroyer construction.
One of the things he said was that what we do making replicas (finding all the pieces, figuring out dimensions, not to mention time and budget, etc.) is much more difficult than what they had to do to create the originals. When I told him that I wasn't using all the original kit parts in my build he complimented my style, adding that making it up was more like what they were actually doing at ILM. When he examined my build up close, it seemed to bring back memories of his time building the original. What I found to be very rewarding was that he would point to areas of my model, for instance, like the panel lines to share with me stories of how they did the same things on the original. He would point to it and say, "See how this line is darker than this line, and these lines overlap, but these don't?" He then told me who at ILM did the lines this way, who did them that way, etc. He even had an interesting story as to where he believes the idea for the deflector domes on top of the bridge came from.
There are 3 events that I consider the highest points in my career as an artist. Mr. Peterson's compliments on this star destroyer build is the latest. Receiving praise from the man who was charged with building the original star destroyer is so unbelievably thrilling to me, I just can't put it into words! The fact that I chose to mix what he and the other ILM guys did with my own detailing style impressed him more than if I just copied the original piece by piece. It is a validation from the highest authority.
It was a weekend that I will never forget. I certainly will never look at this build the same way again.
![[Image: IMGP0445a.jpg]](http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z382/ringa52577/IMGP0445a.jpg)
Lorne was gracious enough to answer all the model questions our group put to him. We sat with him for hours on end at dinners in local restaurants. Charles and I even had exclusive time with him at breakfast. I showed him pictures of all my star destroyers and other models I made for the movie '77 (5-25-77). I even showed him pictures of me as him for the ILM scenes of the film. He got a kick out of that.
Lorne talks to you as an equal, as one of the guys. He is always eager to share information about how the original models were built. Naturally, I had a few questions about the ANH SD. I asked him everything from why was it called the '3-footer' to which side of the eggs were used for the engines. I learned A LOT that will help me in my continued star destroyer construction.
One of the things he said was that what we do making replicas (finding all the pieces, figuring out dimensions, not to mention time and budget, etc.) is much more difficult than what they had to do to create the originals. When I told him that I wasn't using all the original kit parts in my build he complimented my style, adding that making it up was more like what they were actually doing at ILM. When he examined my build up close, it seemed to bring back memories of his time building the original. What I found to be very rewarding was that he would point to areas of my model, for instance, like the panel lines to share with me stories of how they did the same things on the original. He would point to it and say, "See how this line is darker than this line, and these lines overlap, but these don't?" He then told me who at ILM did the lines this way, who did them that way, etc. He even had an interesting story as to where he believes the idea for the deflector domes on top of the bridge came from.
There are 3 events that I consider the highest points in my career as an artist. Mr. Peterson's compliments on this star destroyer build is the latest. Receiving praise from the man who was charged with building the original star destroyer is so unbelievably thrilling to me, I just can't put it into words! The fact that I chose to mix what he and the other ILM guys did with my own detailing style impressed him more than if I just copied the original piece by piece. It is a validation from the highest authority.
It was a weekend that I will never forget. I certainly will never look at this build the same way again.