Building a Complete Visual Dictionary

For fans interested in brushing up on their Star Wars trivia, in building their own replica props, or just wanting to know what a lightsaber looks like on the inside, look no further than DK's newly released Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, a compendium of all four volumes of Visual Dictionaries published for the classic trilogy and each one of the prequels.

This indispensable guide for Star Wars hardware aficionados showcases the more noteworthy props, vehicles, creatures, costumes and characters from the Star Wars saga, with insightful commentary and captions accompanying each high-resolution image. Written by David West Reynolds (Episodes I, II, and IV-VI) and James Luceno (Episode III), and new material by Ryder Windham, the 270-page Complete Visual Dictionary includes all-new cutaway views of R2-D2 and the Sarlacc, as seen in the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi. While most of the images within are photographs of the original movie props and/or digital renderings of creatures and characters, many were devised exclusively for the Visual Dictionary series by artists such as concept sculptor Robert E. Barnes and model maker Don Bies.

Barnes, who began his tenure with the Episode I Art Department working on full-scale vehicle mockups and character puppets, has made numerous design contributions to the prequel trilogy: the sando aqua monster, the nexu, the acklay, the Kamino Aliens, Poggle the Lesser, Boga, and the first full body maquette of General Grievous. For the Visual Dictionaries, Barnes created a trio of Coruscant underlevel creatures exclusively for the Episode II edition, which of course are included in the new complete version. The three creatures -- duracrete slug, stone mite, and conduit worm -- were intentionally designed to look "pretty nasty," says Barnes, since a city the size of Coruscant would likely produce some sizable vermin at its lowest depths.

"The Coruscant creatures had a variety of inspirations," explains Barnes, "but were all created in collaboration with author David West Reynolds. The duracrete slug is a species-shift from the slug in the Wildlife of Star Wars book by Terryl Whitlatch. The slug is based on her design, but with a twist -- instead of having a soft/slimy skin, it has an armored skin developed from consuming and excreting duracrete, so that they're really tough -- and big. They're supposed to get up to ten feet long, I think."

Though the stone mite borrows its name from an old Star Wars Marvel Comics tale, it didn't take any design cues from known creatures in the Star Wars universe, but was inspired by the holochess creatures from A New Hope. "David liked the idea of a three-legged creature, and I had the idea that instead of one creature with three 'legs', we should do one that was actually three individual creatures fused together, so that each creature's head becomes what looks like a claw. Like the duracrete slug, the creature creates its metallic (and electrically charged) protective shell from the materials it eats. The stone mite was fun, because I made the model articulate so that it could change from its walking mode to the folded-up barnacle mode. That was extra work, but it meant we could pose it all the different ways it's shown in the book."

According to Barnes, the conduit worm was built to the scale seen in the book, and fashioned from wire, Sculpey, urethanes, epoxy and paint. "The conduit worm was David's conception, including the types of details and their function, with the modular eyes, 'batteries' and tentacles. It's meant to come across as a cross between an organic life-form and an electrical circuit."