Friday afternoon's session in the Sagamore Ballroom featured "From Concept to Costume", a presentation by Iain McCaig, Trisha Biggar and Dermot Power on their costume work for Episode II. Emceed by Anthony Daniels (who lamented that his costume was "a junkpile" compared to the others), it was both educational regarding Episode II's backstory, and enlightening to know more about the creative process at Skywalker Ranch.

The first part of the presentation was a PowerPoint show with many of the concept art designs: those funny helmets the Jedi kids wear are intended to block their physical senses, making them rely on the Force to guide them. The helmets the clone children wear are being called "clone educators", allowing the clones to be taught rapidly. Shaak Ti's red makeup was originally a red veil going across her face. McCaig said that his design for Eeth Koth was based on Doug Chiang, that most of the Jedi Council were visualized with ILM employees in mind.

Yoda with lightsaber was shown: when Lucas told his staff what Yoda would do in Episode II, creative chaos ensued. The big shock of Yoda "kicking butt" was that "Yoda comes on, everyone laughs... then he KILLS them!" McCaig said. The Sith designs were intriguing: McCaig eventually created a Sith version of Padme: "everyone has a Sith inside waiting to happen," he told us. We were shown the costumes for the clones, Boba and Jango Fett, and the Tusken Raiders. The effort poured into the Jedi costumes alone was enormous.

Biggar went into the cultural background of the costumes: some are based off of Elizabethan-era clothing, others from Native American designs, etc. "I had to get into the books" she said, noting that at Lucasfilm, it's par for the course to design alongside a history book. In terms of design/construction of the costumes, she said something that shocked a number of people, including myself (Chris): some of the material used in AOTC's costumes are very old, including the yellow antique lace on the headpiece in Padme's travelling costume. Other elements are natural (like hand-carved seashells used in one headpiece).

Dermot spoke about his design style: he opts for a computer for his drawing, instead of crayon-on-paper. "It's ten times faster" he said, adding that the computer makes it easy to add to a costume if Lucas wants a change made. "It's like the patronage system," Biggar told us, referring to when the rich would pay artisans to create art: "George tells us what look he wants and we have to create that."

McCaig, Biggar and Dermot met the demands for Episode II, but one more prequel now approaches, and with it some new challenges. At one point Lucas asked them for a costume "that was barely noticable"... essentially a CGI-created costume. Makes us wonder what could be in store with Episode III...