Meet the Star Wars Droid Designers

In May, Autodesk and Disney joined forces to launch a “Star Wars” droid design contest, to promote the release of the new Acolyte series on Disney's streaming platform, Disney+. The contest allowed Autodesk Fusion and Maya users to envision and design their own droids for the Star Wars universe. Among the winners are Jared Teiger, a senior Industrial Design student at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), and Alexander Lee, a performer, composer, and animator. We spoke to them to understand what inspired their droids, what their obstacles were, and how they overcame them.

Jared Teiger: The Scrapper

Teiger's creation, The scrapper, is a Mechanical prize winner. He described it as “a droid with a frenzied attitude. His love of tinkering with objects led him to scavenge for parts that he could then sell for a profit after fixing them. He constantly finds himself in imperial junkyards, abandoned shipwrecks, and landfills. Scrapper is a very versatile droid who can give any piece of broken or used junk a new purpose.”

While reading the design contest's brief, Teiger decided to create a droid that would potentially solve a real-world issue. He recalled a video he had seen of the people who scavenged and lived off Pemulung, one of Indonesia's largest landfills. “This led me to vehicles that work with trash. I took inspiration from their form, as well as from their functionality and detailing. Lastly, I wanted to see if I could grab forms from vultures or hyenas since they are scavengers as well,” he explains.

Teiger's design software skills encompass Autodesk Maya, Blender, Moment of Inspiration (MOI), and Unreal Engine. He says he had now fully switched to Autodesk Fusion for most nurb and surface modeling. “I can thank my proficiency within Fusion 360 to an internship where I really learned a lot while designing products inside it,” he says. “The proficiency is not just on the tools within Fusion 360, but how to think critically about modeling and designing specific forms in 3D from a 2D drawing. Once I changed my thinking from letting the software dictate my designs to choosing what design choices I wanted within the software, I started to level up my expertise in 3D modeling in general.”

Most notable in The Scrapper's design are its two giant wheels that provide mobility. “The main method I used to model some of the components was sketching to extrusions. However, I also played around with surfaces and had a fun time learning new things along the way,” Teiger says. “Since there was a mechanical component to be considered, I struggled to wrap my head around making some of the joints. I did research into 3D-printing joints, and I was slowly able to learn how to design various joints. There are two ball-and-socket joints: one in the neck, and one in the torso. Pivot joints are in his shoulder, elbow and wrists. The wheel tire flows freely on the inner rim while the suspension in the legs allows for Scrapper to traverse rough terrain.”

As part of his prize, Teiger received a 3D-printed version of his design. He recalls, “It's such a great feeling, a mixture of joy, pride, and excitement. Autodesk used a SLS 3D printer to bring The Scrapper into the real world, and it was cool to be invited to the Autodesk office to be shown the process.” 

Alexander Lee: QZ-M2: the Hunchback of Niima

Lee's QZ-M2: the Hunchback of Niima, is an Animated prize winner. It might not be apparent at first glance, but the Hunchback was influenced by the Japanese culture, Lee reveals. The oversized Shoiko backpacks, Kasa hats, and Mina coats of traditional Japanese farmers, and the Sode shoulder pads of ancient samurais inspired different elements of his design. 

“I am Taiwanese American; my father's parents immigrated here from Taiwan in the late 60s, and my mother moved here in 2002. However, all my grandparents have a history with Japan, having grown up in Taiwan in the 1940s [near the end of the Japanese colonial period]. My grandfather on my father's side went to school in Japan, and my grandfather on my mother's side now collects antiques from Japan. Influence from both sides of my family has given me a deep fascination with Japanese history from a young age,” says Lee.

Lee is currently studying political science at Harvard, and he has never had formal training in 3D modeling. “I actually learnt 3D modelling many years ago because of my passion for Star Wars,” he reveals. When the first Star Wars film premiered, Alexander was still in elementary school. He filmed a LEGO “Star Wars” short, now archived on YouTube.

“I made it a personal mission in middle school to create a “Star Wars” fan film with my cousin, and naturally thought that I should learn how to make ships fly through space using 3D software. So I made various models in 3D for our hypothetical film, learning through trial and error how to use Blender,” Lee recalls.

For the ”Star Wars” droid design contest, he delved into using Maya. Lee began designing the Hunchback of Niima a month before the contest deadline, while still a newbie in Maya. He watched YouTube tutorials to learn the UI and the tools available.

First he analyzed the silhouettes of various iconic robots from the “Star Wars” universe to emulate in his robot. He went through a few iterations, abandoned some ideas, then began looking at bipedal animals for inspiration. “I looked at the skeletal structure of a chicken and an ostrich, before landing on the skeleton of an upright pangolin for inspiration,” he says.

“The hardest components to model for my robot were the forearms and feet. I initially drew a sketch of my robot without thinking much about how I would later model it using 3D software, so learning how to create a seamless combination of curves and sharp edges proved quite difficult at first,” recalls Lee. “I made sure to design both components to have the complex curves I wanted, while still maintaining a relatively simple geometry to later emulate in 3D. Throwing shapes together in Maya until a specific shape looked right, really helped inform how I would end up modeling these parts.”

Since his submission was for animation, he needed more than a 3D model. “Textures are all sourced by me, by taking photos of copper pots around the house, vases at my local TJMaxx, as well as metal carts and burlap sacks from an antique store. In the video, music is composed and performed by me. Sound effects are recorded by me: a keen ear may hear a hand-cranked flashlight, a bag of rice, and a washing machine,” he says.

More Autodesk Coverage