Page 66 - Star Wars Insider #188

BY ROYAL DECREE

06

CREATURE

FEATURES:

THE SCIENCE OF
COSTUME RESTORATION

As well as creating original art, Tom Spina
Designs rebuilds classic movie props that
have been languishing in storage or have
simply aged by the passage of the years.
Many creature props from the 1970s
and 1980s were built in foam latex, which is
lightweight and looks organic, but over the
years can stiffen and, eventually, crumble into
dust. Spina became fascinated with restoring
such costumes, which requires thinking like
an effects artist, a museum curator, and a
chemist all rolled into one.
“When you think of how someone
restores a car, they tend to take a whole
panel off, replace it with a new one, strip
it down, and then repaint the whole car so
that everything matches,” Spina says. “If
you were to do that with a movie prop, you
would ruin it. What makes a prop special is
the fact that the paint refl ected light to the
camera, which exposed the fi lm that then
played in the movie theater where you saw it
as a kid. When we get a movie prop, it is 100
percent about keeping that prop as original
as possible.”
This means not painting over original
paint, maintaining original textures, and
making sure that pieces that have to be
replaced are done so in the same style as he notes. “They don’t think they iconic visual cue from the Star Wars
the original. His studio uses ‘inpainting,’ a
museum technique also used on artifacts, can get that sort of stuff for their galaxy took off on the internet—
where paint is carefully applied only to a own space, so it’s really neat to that same marvel of modern
damaged area so that none of the original be able to offer it to folks. And it’s communication where Spina
paint is covered.

It takes around three to six months to turned out that people have gone first encountered a like-minded
restore a creature costume as tall as a human, nuts for it.” individual with whom he could
such as Muftak the Talz from the Mos Eisley Among the company’s more do business.
cantina. These take longer than individual
props because they require a mix of skills, recent standout pieces is the
including a custom-made mannequin to fi ll Emperor Throne Armchair. Regal Craft Works
out the costume. For instance, restoring Robot’s interpretation of Palpatine’s Spina and Richard Riley originally
the original Muftak meant cleaning his fur, imposing seat is a mid-century met through an online forum for
repairing his hands, restitching parts, and

reinforcing him inside and out. modern take on the prop seen in aficionados of movie-prop replicas,
Tom Spina Designs also handled the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983). appropriately called the Replica
restoration of Luke Skywalker’s costume from When Spina and company decided Props Forum (RPF), where they
the beginning of A New Hope, including his
poncho—a project that entailed making a full- to tackle the galactic tyrant’s formed an instant connection over
size mannequin of Mark Hamill to fi t it. throne, they realized it would their respective love of detail in Star
“Props and costumes are the art of our be too big and costly to exactly Wars puppets. It was Riley’s posts
time,” Spina says. “To me, they are the most recreate the original. Instead, Spina on the forum of his life-size sculpt
inspiring, and I count my lucky stars that every
day I get to see and interact with them, and says, they wanted to portray the of Jabba the Hutt—his fi rst project
preserve them for other fans to see, interact idea of the Emperor reclining in a in foam—that first caught Spina’s

with, and absorb.” stylish lounge from the early 1960s. eye. “He’d captured details that I
Once again, their reimagining of an had not seen anyone else capture

66 / STAR WARS INSIDER