DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704260068

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   62 lines

SCI-FI BUFF RE-CREATES ``STAR WARS'' FIGURES

In the beginning, there were no pictures, only words.

When the makers of Star Wars Customizable Cards in Norfolk asked staff artist Joe Boulden to create a new ship this year for bounty hunter Dengar, he had almost nothing to go on.

The ship does not appear in any movie. The ship's owner appeared briefly in ``The Empire Strikes Back'' - one of five bounty hunters seen for a few seconds.

At some point after the movie, an author gave the bounty hunter a name (Dengar), a ship (Punishing One) and a history (an assassin whose brain was altered so he can't tell right from wrong). Dengar starred in his own short story in a ``Star Wars'' paperback.

That story contains the briefest possible description of Dengar's ship: four sentences.

The tale of how Boulden created Dengar's ship in a downtown Norfolk office building is the story of how Decipher Inc. - the Granby Street company that produces the card game - creates and adds to Star Wars' lore.

Boulden, 33, grew up in Norfolk, a Star Trek fanatic. When Star Wars arrived in 1977, Boulden collected the figures. He was just 13.

``Who'd have thought it would be a job skill to be a Trekkie?'' Boulden marvels.

For a year and a half, Boulden has created and enhanced images for Decipher's Star Wars and Star Trek cards. It is his dream job.

Every image on every card is enhanced to some degree. Each appears to be a frame from a Star Wars film. Many fans probably remember them from the movies - or think they remember.

That is the job of Boulden and fellow staff artist Rob Burns: to create or recreate scenes as fans remember them, not necessarily as they appear on film.

``Maybe 1 percent are totally new creations,'' adds Matt Mariani, Decipher's marketing director.

Most cards are simple enhancements. Yoda, for example, gets hair and wrinkles, adding detail to the fuzziness of the original 70-millimeter film frames.

Some are totally new creations.

Take Dengar's ship.

The short story contains this brief description: ``His ship, Punishing One, sat in the dark under the limbs, sheltered by a camouflage net. The JumpMaster had been built as a scouting and service vehicle for untamed worlds. It was small - designed for a single pilot, with enough room for a passenger or a bit of freight. The U-shaped vessel had some decent weaponry - proton torpedoes, a quad blaster, and a mini ion cannon.''

In the Star Wars universe, all new creations must be cleared with creator George Lucas, and all must be consistent. Boulden, therefore, had to begin his creation with the words of Dengar's short story.

On a Power Mac computer, using Adobe Photoshop, Boulden painted a U-shaped, two-man ship. Then he created a 3-D wire frame version of the same ship. Slowly, he added detail.

The result is a photo-realistic image that looks like it came from the film - but didn't. It is part of the new Dagobah card set released last week.

Boulden now is working on a new set of Star Trek cards. ``I'm in sci-fi buff heaven,'' he said. MEMO: [For a related story, see page E1 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this

date.]

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