ILM.com is showcasing artwork specially chosen by members of the ILM Art Department. In this installment of a continuing series, two artists from the San Francisco studio share insights about their work on the 2026 Lucasfilm production, The Mandalorian and Grogu.
This was a key art illustration of a story beat to show Grogu and the Anzellans finding their way through the sewer pipes in the Hutt’s palace. It builds tension and a sense of foreboding as the sewer rat alien creature is stalking them.
I played with the size and diameter of the pipe a bit to see how claustrophobic to make it, and how big should the sewer rat be to both feel menacing and fit within the pipe.
I researched other similar moments in movies. I tried some other illustrations of the rat spying on them as they enter the Hutt’s palace through the pipe, like the scene in the Disney animated film Sword in the Stone [1963], when the wolf is tracking young Arthur, or “Wart,” through the forest. I also looked a bit at the scene in Alien 3 [1992] when the xenomorph is stalking the inmates of Fiorina 161 through the giant industrial prison pipes. I liked the lighting and palette of those scenes.
[Production designer] Doug Chiang asked me to do a few concepts depicting Grogu coming of age in the heavily forested swamps of Nal Hutta. While the Hutt palace area was meant to look dreary and polluted, Doug wanted the swamp area to look magical and beautiful. Considering Grogu’s small stature, I realized pretty quickly that raising him up off the ground onto a branch or root would really help to showcase him in the vibrant environment.
When Doug asked me to make the lighting magical and push the color in an otherwise pretty monochromatic environment, my first instinct was to place the sun behind the trees in the far background. You can really push the color and depth that way.
Doug was pretty happy right off the bat with the color and mood of my first pass. Putting a low sun in frame allowed me to really push the warms and cools and allowed for increased depth. Having a lot of atmosphere in there allowed me to play up silhouettes, especially Grogu’s. We went back and forth on the depiction of the ground, playing with versions where there was only swamp water but we ended up with more of a grassy ground. Adding little mushrooms was a way to sprinkle a bit more color.
When you’re a concept artist you certainly want to aim for what the director will like and being familiar with their work is pretty important. When Doug Chiang gave me this assignment I immediately thought of a concept that Christian Alzmann had done for Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book [2016] depicting Mowgli walking on a giant root or log up in the air. I thought that Jon might enjoy seeing little Grogu in a similar situation.
I loved the idea that Grogu might be watching a swarm of beautiful, alien birds or insects flying by. It was an easy way to imply that the environment is not threatening but rather full of small living creatures.
See the complete gallery of concept art from The Mandalorian and Grogu here on ILM.com.
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