Are there any plug-ins you wouldn't be without?

I am just starting to realise the potential for plug-ins. Already using Worley Labs 'Taft' collection: Tracer, Heatwave and looking forward to Hoser. Skytracer 2 and Saslite, although standard to LightWave out of the box, are essential - I would not be without them.

In your opinion, should LightWave stay separated or become integrated?

In my opinion they work well separated. Imagine the combined interface, would probably need three screens!

Are you aware of FPrime from Worley - it would be good for print.

Yes, I have seen it in action and was very impressed, print quality renders can be achieved very quickly or just leave it rendering as long as the deadline allows. It seems the more you give it to do the better it performs. It's on my shopping list (unless you have a spare copy gathering dust somewhere).

How did you get the Star Wars gig?

It all started in 2001 when the book designers (MC Design, New York) saw some Adobe® Illustrator work of mine in a weekly 'Star Trek' magazine - liked the style and commissioned the art for the first book in the series 'The Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels'. Although completed in Adobe® Illustrator 10 there were elements of LightWave used. I would produce a very basic model, choose a suitable angle for the illustration, render it untextured and use this as the basis for the pencil perspective which would then be worked up in Illustrator. PHEW.

It was then a natural progression to move into using LightWave for the current book 'The Essential Guide to Weapons & Technology'.

How long have you worked on the project?

Work started on the book in October 2003, final art was delivered during June and July 2004 - ten months in total.

How many models did you work on over the ten months, and did you have any help?

75% were completed by me with overall art direction under my control, with the help of Paul Bates and Rob Garrard we were able to fulfill extremely tight deadlines. Paul was based in Germany at the time so timing and communications were a priority in terms of how I planned the schedule of work. Because of the tight deadline quite a few weeks were spent planning ahead in order to ensure the different batches of art would be finished on time, indeed I became quite famous at the publishers for my production charts alone!

Did Lucasfilm send you maquettes of the objects they wanted you to include, or did you make stuff from watching the films frame by frame?

Reference for the illustrations came from a variety of sources. Much of the basic reference came from the original publication in the form of black and white schematics and an accompanying sketch. LucasFilm would then fill in the gaps by supplying colour reference images from their own library, these would sometimes be photographs of maquettes or props used in the films. For some pieces there was no visual/pictorial reference at all. That's when the fun really started!

For these weapons or pieces of technology (some biological!) I would receive a piece of text taken from one of the Star Wars novels or from the author and proceed to sketch and invent the item, indeed the production manager became concerned about the state of my mind when he saw the 'Villips' (a form of communication used by the Yuuzhan Vong)!