When "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" arrives in theaters this weekend, one of the breakout characters is certain to be the adorable little ball droid BB-8.
The puppy dog-like character isn't a CG character. The crew made a real, working, remote-controlled droid for the film which could roll around and interact with the cast on set.
But it didn't always look like that.
A new behind-the-scenes video on the film's YouTube page shows off some of the early concept art for the small droid.
BB-8 started out as a sketch on a napkin drawn by director J.J. Abrams himself. The basic idea was to have two circles, one on top of the other.
Abrams told Entertainment Weekly the name of the droid came from its simple look.
"I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia," Abrams said. "It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the 2 B’s."
It took a lot of sketches to get the droid just right. It looks like the hardest thing was figuring out how to make BB-8 with his head attached directly to his body.
They did it though.
With help from robotics startup Sphero, Disney and Lucasfilm were able to make a life-size working BB-8 just as Abrams imagined.
Even the side panels of the little droid underwent numerous designs.
If you're thinking the patterns on BB-8 resemble a soccer ball, you're not mistaken. According to Lucasfilm concept designer Christian Alzmann, that's exactly what helped inspire the droid's final look.
"When you’re on a project like that, you start looking at everything spherical for inspiration," Alzmann told StarWars.com. "I think I ran across a soccer ball, and I was just like, 'Oh, it's kind of perfect.'"
You can check out the full video below.
