An incredibly rare and original piece of ILM Rotoscope artwork, used in the production of the third epic Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi. Rotoscoping is a traditional visual effects technique (now achieved with CGI) where an animator traces over a projected film image by hand, frame by frame, to modify the image. In the case of the Star Wars films, rotoscope animation was used to give the lightsaber blades their glow, and to animate laser blasts and hits.

This rotoscope drawing is a fully rendered pencil sketch that served as an outline for airbrushing black ink onto an animation cel. This cel would serve as a mat to block the areas under the walker's legs from being exposed on film, so that a flash of light, simulating a laser blast, could be inserted. This piece was used to create a shot of a quick (single frame) flash of light as a laser bolt strikes the leg of the walker.

The piece is made up of a black background paper with the traced Walker Legs art attached to it, and covered by another layer that is a clear animation cel, with the black mat painted on.

To create this piece, an ILM animator would project the film of the AT-AT onto animation paper at an animation stand. They would trace the image frame by frame, so that they had an exact reference to the walker's legs in every frame of the shot.

In this particular frame, the AT-AT is walking towards the rebel base, surrounded by speeders attempting to take them down. As the AT-ATs are grey, and the snow is white, the image has had to be surrounded by black, which has been achieved with ink. The rotoscope drawing has been done on specifically created animation art paper, which has been hole punched with absolute precision to hold each page tightly in place and prevent any movement whatsoever.

The sheet comes presented in a custom made display with laser cut mount board, featuring the movie title and a still of this moment in the movie.