When "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" hits theaters this December, one of the breakout characters is certain to be the adorable little ball droid, BB-8.
According to a lengthy new article on the making of the droid on StarWars.com, BB-8 started out as nothing more than a sketch on a napkin drawn by director J.J. Abrams himself.
While there's no official image of the sketch, it's described as a basic breakdown of BB-8's final iteration — two circles, one on top of the other, along with a little dot for an eye.
So, something akin to this:
As Abrams explained to Entertainment Weekly, the name for BB-8 came from the look of the character.
"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."
Lucasfilm concept designer Christian Alzmann mentioned that soccer balls also helped pull together the final look of BB-8.
"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 read the full article on the making of BB-8 here.
