Djas Puhr, a mysterious looking character with a 50's sci-fi vibe and a glossy sheen
Mosep - a funny looking fellow with whiskers hand-punched one at a time
Muftak, another costume, fabricated from foam. The fur is a near perfect match for the original film used costume
Kabe, the bat-like alien was made for wear by a little person, no detail was missed, not even the tongue!
Gotal, a sculpted piece crafted to match the rough look of the original. The hands complete his look
We made quite a few other hands as well! The Plutonian had four arms so that means four hands for one character!
Volkswagen's Superbowl Star Wars Commercial
Hammerhead, made as a wearable creature costume with oversized arms and hands. Fabricated from foam
Nabrun Leids, aka "the Plutonian" - A vintage WWII UK gas mask was sourced for this character
Snaggletooth, sculpted to match the look of the character on the iconic action figure card photos.
View the commercial!
Be sure to watch it all the way through
as the cantina scene comes after the dog!
Return to the Star Wars Cantina!
PART ONE
Stay tuned to our Facebook page for future updates and photos!
In 2012, Volkswagen followed up their wildly successful "Vader kid" commercial by taking their viewers all the way into the Star Wars universe, revisiting the infamous cantina from Star Wars, Episode IV.
In order to make that trip, they needed to stop off at Tom Spina Designs to help fill their Star Wars bar with creatures!
Lucasfilm was able to provide the production with some of their prequel aliens, but our studio was called upon to recreate masks, hands and sometimes bodies for the "hero" characters, the recognizable aliens from the 1977 film.
To the right you'll find a link to the commercial and photos of each alien we created.
The majority were created from scratch for the production. For several, we utilized new molds/castings of existing sculpts (such as Mosep and Djas Puhr), modifying them heavily for shape, detail, fit, visibility and finishing everything with an eye for the added detail today's HD sets will show, while still being true to the original creatures from 1977.
We'll soon add a gallery of behind the scenes images of our crew creating these characters.
The Team at TSD for this project:
Tom Spina
Mike Thomas
Brian Lewis
Patrick Louie
Robb DeNicola
Richard Riley
Rich Krusell
Mike Morello
Melissa Dooley
Theresa Spina
The build was lightning fast and a true group effort... we'll go more in depth on who did what in our behind the scenes galleries.
We hope everyone enjoys the commercial (and the Superbowl too!)
Tom Spina Designs specializes in the creation of custom sculpture and the restoration and preservation of original movie props and costumes.
Please visit the links in the top menu bar for more projects like this one!
Click the above image to see our behind the scenes gallery and videos!
Dr. Evazan, the bully of the cantina, facial prosthetic sculpture on the left and finished makeup applied to the actor on the right
Walrusman aka Ponda Baba, one of the "speaking" characters, with translucent tusks and hand-punched hair.
