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RobCaswell β AT-PT
Published: 2013-02-01 16:29:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 6105; Favourites: 113; Downloads: 249
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Description
This is another of my Star Wars designs for West End Games that has endured through the years. This is the Imperial one-man walker - the AT-PT - as first mentioned in Timothy Zahn's Star Wars New Republic trilogy. I was tasked with visualizing the vehicle for West End Games' "Dark Force Rising" RPG book. Obviously I wanted to capture something of a family resemblance to the AT-ST, but I think my own anime design influence creeped in at the edges as well. Included are most of my sketches from the design process. My sketches for such things are usually VERY loose and just serve as shape tests to confirm that what my brain THINKS it sees can actually be drawn
Unfortunately I have no idea where my original is now? So this is a scan of the published work, then cleaned up to better represent the original illustration.
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Comments: 84
I liked all the strange vehicles that stuffed the pages of the old Star Wars RPGs, always interesting to see the design process behind something like that.
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I am. Zahn created the concept in his book, but I was the first to officially visualize the vehicle.
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WOW! Now I find out that one of the SW RPG drawings I've always liked (because the design was so cool and because the drawing itself was so crisp) is another one of yours? AND you actually designed the vehicle, as well?
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I love AT-PTs. I first saw them in Rogue Squadron III when I was little! (I'm 13)
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I love AT-PTs. I first saw them in Rogue Squadron III when I was little! (I'm 13)
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You were my favorite artist from my WEG Star Wars days! Β And this was one of my favorite vehicles.
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Great design
I remember the book (oh, I go to open the book 
Souvenir, Souvenir ....
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Wow I've been using the AT PT in Galactic Battlegrounds, they've been very handy
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Happy to oblige... at least for the 1992 model
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wait. you designed the AT-PT? That's Awesome!
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Aye, I did.
Anything for a buck
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Dude the AT-PT is like my favorite obscure little walker. I'm just gonna go over in the corner and have a fangasm now. Don't mind me.
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LOL! I.... won't interfere
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AT-PT pops up in Force Commander and Empire at War as I recall.
And innumerable mods for the aforementioned game and others.
It's one of my favorite Imperial vehicles :3
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It is almost like powered armor... but not quite. Like a teeny mech.
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I seem to recall driving one in Jedi Academy, another mod 
[link]
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Weren't those in the third film?
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Yup, it's canon now I guess
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Excellent work I do like that you added the original sketches with it as well it shows well how such a design comes to be
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It's fun for me, to, to trace my brain's footsteps
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That would make an impact...
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Did you ever get one of the minis of the design that West End did?
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I think you may be the one who gave me one? I've got it down in the model cave but haven't put it together yet... as with some much other loot down there
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All I had to do was looking up and to slightly to the left to see the sourcebook this is in... Great design!
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Thanks
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I did indeed, unfortunately my gaming crew has long since gone their separate ways (part of getting old, I suppose). I just noticed the Copyright 1992... The year I graduated from high school.
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LOL! Yup. That's why I keep getting junk mail from the AARP
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This is definitely my favorite Imperial walker! I've always loved the hunched over design and the huge blaster in the front. I was really hoping they would use it in Episode III. The AT-RT is okay, but this feels more Star Wars to me. 
Something interesting I just noticed is that the window on the front seems to have evolved over the years. In this illustration it's a small, single-pane window with an anti-glare panel below it. Then in later productions someone mistook the anti-glare panel for part of the window, and every depiction that followed did the same thing. I hadn't seen this particular illustration, so I always thought it was a bit silly that they would put such a huge window on the front of the vehicle.
(btw: you're Rob Caswell?! 
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ARRRGH! You're kidding - a full window on the front? WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! It may have had something to do with West End's poor camera work. It's one of the things I fixed here. On their shot of the art, the zip-tone on the anti-glare panel kind of filled in, so if someone wasn't paying close attention they might have mistaken the a-g panel for more window. But you're right - that would be king-primo-design-dumb!
Anyway... yup. I be he and he be me. I did a lot of SF RPG illustration, back in the day. For five years it was my day-job, so it's "produce or die"!
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The Essential Guide may have been the culprit for starting that idea; the entire front of the walker is black with a white bar across it, which looks as though the window continues past and down to the blaster cannon: [link] Only the upper "pane" is called out as a viewport, but having the rest of the panel blacked out implies that the rest is one, too.
Sounds like a dream job for any artistic sci-fi fan. It would probably be hell some days trying to get something done on time or get inspiration for something, but the rest would be worth all that.
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Ugh. Yeah, I forgot about that two-view tech drawing. It made me cringe from day one. Suffice to say, if I did that drawing it'd look a bit different. But hey - that's what happens when you play in a shared universe
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YOU Designed the AT-PT?!?!?!??!?!?
F*** I am in touch with Sci-fi royalty!!!!
I never thought much of the AT-PT - I thought it was one of those fan art silly ideas.
Until now - this pic is a revelation! She looks the business!!!
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"Sci-fi royalty..."
Hardly... but thanks for the smile. It is one of the few feathers I can stick in my cap that will be fairly widely recognized. And I've run into folks who thought Doug Chiang designed it
The design idea originally came from the Timothy Zahn trilogy. Then it was plopped in my lap to add shape and detail to the words. I'm glad this one says "business" to ya! This is the definitive, seminal image of the craft... but these things have a way of mutating when other artists have to later interpret them... like my Wild Karrde. A few people get that vehicle right, but a lot just run off in the wrong direction. Sadly a lot of these "mutations" have a way of becoming the established design... if only because the original gets lost in the pages of time (or, more literally, the pages of the old RPG bookshelf).
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Hey now 
I do
Well if people think your work is done by Mr Chiang, wow!
I love this - the other images do not do it justice - when I saw this I went "F***! Superb!" and yes I agree on the mutation front.
On that, err....I am doing a pic that will be featuring said ship.......
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OH!??! I curiously await!!!!
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All I can say is watch this space and hope I do it justice
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Thanks, MS. If I finally get into 3D modeling, then I can get back into designing
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what I like about this design is that it looks like it could actually be built. you can about see one of these standing on an assembly line instead of looking like something that would need some sort of super tech to build.
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