Slave 1

I first saw The Empire Strikes Back in the theater in 1980 at the age of ten. As an avid fan I collected everything I could on the movie. One of the best books was "The Empire Strikes Back Sketchbook". There were a number of pages dedicated to the design sketches of Boba Fett's ship, Slave 1. In the book, It stated that the design idea came from a street lamp near Industrial Light & Magic, which was located in San Rafael at that time. 

Years later, myself now employed at ILM, I remember walking to lunch one day and looking for those street lamps to no avail. I figured the city had most likely upgraded their municipal lighting scheme. 

Then just a few weeks ago I was walking down the street from my home in Richmond, Virginia where I now reside. And low and behold, a single street lamp that looked oddly familiar. Its interesting to finally see what I imagine is the same type that inspired the original design idea.

I love the thought of utilizing/tweaking the design of everyday objects to create believable and seemingly original designs for things like spacecraft, robots, etc.