Last month we talked to Jeff Bunker, VP of Art Direction for Avalanche Studios, about the characters and figures for Disney Infinity 3.0. Now comes the moment many Star Wars fans have been waiting for--the release of the classic trilogy characters for the "Rise Against The Empire” Play Set.
The next wave of figures will be released on Tuesday, September 29, and includes Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader. (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, and Yoda have already been released. Darth Maul is due on November 3).
We talked to Jeff about the classic trilogy characters and what it was like creating the figures with the pressure from Star Wars fans to get them just right.
COMIC VINE: What’s it been like working on Star Wars designs for Disney Infinity?
JEFF BUNKER: Kind of a dream come true. We’re used to working on the new characters that come out like the Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen characters. Whenever you get to go into the vault and dig back into the history—some of these characters are ones that came out when we were kids—it’s an amazing opportunity. We’re just very excited to work on Luke and Leia, Han, Darth Vader, and Chewbacca. It’s crazy exciting. It’s a lot of fun.
CV: Did you feel any more pressure from fans when working on the original trilogy characters?
JEFF: Ha. There’s no question. The Star Wars fans, they’re another level of fan, I think. They take it to another level. And I have to say, Lucasfilm, themselves, they’re very careful with their characters. We worked very closely with them to get them right. Our experience is if we’re making the creators happy, we’re most likely going to make the fans happy.
CV: With Luke and Vader, we’ll now have seven characters with lightsabers. How much thought was put into giving each a distinct pose?
JEFF: It was very important that we were doing poses that felt authentic to that character. Luke, for instance, it’s typical for him to fight holding the saber with two hands. We wanted to take the opportunity to use one of the few characters we have that has both hands on it. If you were to look through the films, you’ll actually see that pose a number of times. It just feels very authentic to him. Hopefully we can say that about each one of them. We’re trying to find a pose that wouldn’t feel right on any other character but Luke, you would never see that pose on…Ahsoka or the others. It’s just right for that one character.
CV: You focus on the character design. Does your department talk to the game designers in terms of how the characters will play? Does that factor into the design at all?
JEFF: For sure. We start out there. The good news is, for us, our game team and our figure team are the same team. We built the characters with the game in mind first. Then we work on poses and we’re constantly working on proportions that make the character animate well as well as a great collector’s figure.
CV: I constantly hear people raving about the designs of the figures and buying them just to display. Has there ever been any thought to releasing larger scaled statues of any figures?
JEFF: We’ve heard that a number of times. As artists, we always want to see our work bigger. It is definitely something we would love to do. It’s been discussed.
CV: With a character like Luke, what was the process like for figuring out his hairstyle? Was there any debate or did everyone just agree right away?
JEFF: There’s a lot of different “Lukes” as you go through, especially since we’re covering all three of the episodes he was in. We could’ve picked any one of his outfits or any one of his hair styles. It ended up we just felt like we ought to go back to his origins when he was the young Luke, full of potential instead of the finished Luke. We went for that Tatooine Luke. We wanted his hair to be kind of like a teenagers and a little messed up. As you watch him progress through the three films, he goes from lighter clothes to darker and darker clothes. His hair gets more groomed. We just went with the beginning.
CV: Which Star Wars figure was the toughest to capture the perfect design?
JEFF: Han Solo, interestingly enough, his face, it was challenging for us to get a likeness we were happy with. I think we ended up in a good place there but he was challenging. There’s also Yoda and Darth Vader because they’re so iconic. I don’t think they were any more difficult than the other characters but we felt pressure just because who they were. Each one of them was challenging and fun in their own way. I can’t really think of one that kicked our butt.
CV: That’s good. You mentioned last month that Vader was one of your favorite characters that had already been announced. Is that still the case?
JEFF: I think it is…he’s just really solid. He’s still Darth Vader but he’s clearly Infinity Darth Vader. We always try to make a strong enough statement that it’s clearly our version of the character. I think we were really successful with him.