Designer to the Stars

Mark Boudreaux has been creating Star Wars toys since Luke Skywalker first set foot in the Millennium Falcon

Mark Boudreaux has been creating Star Wars toys since Luke Skywalker first set foot in the Millennium Falcon. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

PAWTUCKET, R.I. - In this not-too-distant toy galaxy, a giant yellow Naboo Starfighter hangs in Mark Boudreaux's office, hovering over rows of Imperial Shuttles, Jedi Starfighters, Snowspeeders, and armies of miniature Storm Troopers.

" 'Star Wars' completely surrounds you," says Boudreaux. "It's like . . . the force."

Boudreaux has been a different kind of force here at Hasbro Inc.: He's the longest-running toy designer in the "Star Wars" saga - the Yoda of the toy design department. Since 1977 he has had a hand in designing and developing toys, action figures, and vehicles from each of the seven "Star Wars" movies, including "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the animated film that opened this past weekend.

For the latest line of toys, Boudreaux designed the 30-inch Millennium Falcon ship as well as a six-legged "Clone Wars" vehicle, known to fans as an "AT-TE."

Sitting in a Hasbro conference room called the "Fun Factory," Boudreaux, 53, becomes giddy as he talks about his work and the enduring appeal of "Star Wars."

" 'Star Wars' is basically a real classic good-versus-evil scenario, but it's a lot more than that," says Boudreaux. "It's something that you can become completely engrossed in. It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere."

Being a team member of the "Star Wars" universe is a personal and professional passion for Boudreaux. He collects the figurines and vehicles that he and 89 other toy designers at Hasbro's Rhode Island offices produce.

"It's a job that will give you gray hair," he says, "but . . . I don't know what else I would love to do more."

Boudreaux's space toy odyssey began in his native Ohio. He grew up building military model planes and watching the "Star Trek" series on TV.

In 1977, Boudreaux was majoring in industrial design at the University of Cincinnati when he landed a cooperative position at the Kenner toy company in Cincinnati.

"I was at the right place at the right time," says Boudreaux, who was hired full-time as a designer by Kenner and became part of the team that developed vintage toys based on the space opera of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

Among Boudreaux's early favorite tasks: designing the basic size and shape of the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship.

"Over the period of three films, it became the hero ship," says Boudreaux, holding the original model in his hand. He also created other vehicle toys such as the Slave I, the bounty hunter Boba Fett's ship in "The Empire Strikes Back." When he started his job, Boudreaux designed toys by hand using a drawing board, and he built prototype models from cardboard.

Boudreaux says his job is fun but not all games. Toy designers have to translate what the fans see on the screen into a three-dimensional toy they can take home.

"How do you bring the experience home with you? That's a big part of our job," says the bearded designer, who wears a "Star Wars" polo shirt this afternoon at Hasbro's brick-face offices. "We want to do more than just make a pretty model kit that sits on a shelf. We want you to be able to experience ['Star Wars'] all over again as many times as you like. We put a lot of things in the vehicles that would bring the movie to mind. The characters come to life."

Over the years, with each film, Boudreaux worked on a variety of vehicles and figures, but not all appeared in the movies. In the early 1980s, Boudreaux produced "Mini-Rigs," which were lower-priced hand-held vehicles for the action figures.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. George Lucas took a break from producing "Star Wars" content. During that time, Boudreaux focused on developing toys for other brands such as "MASK" (Mobile Armored Strike Command), "The Centurions," and "Jurassic Park." Boudreaux designed deluxe size toy dinosaurs and an RV lab.

Hasbro bought Kenner in 1991 and closed its Cincinnati office in 2000. The company relocated employees to Rhode Island, and Boudreaux moved to Cranston with his wife, Judy, and their two children. For the move, the family had to rent a U-Haul to load all of Boudreaux's "Star Wars" memorabilia, which included an R2-D2 cookie jar he bought in 1977.

"Over a 30-year period, he has accumulated a lot of stuff," says Judy, who is used to seeing her husband bring his work home.

Some days that might include a prototype for an ultimate lightsaber. Or he might bring the latest "Galactic Heroes" characters - small and chunky action figures that Boudreaux helped design for younger kids. To sketch his products, Boudreaux uses an interactive display pen and digital tablet.

Boudreaux can see himself in some of his creations. Some Rebel Soldiers action figures bear his likeness. Lucasfilm allowed members of the Star Wars toy design team to use self-portraits for some of the generic background characters.

"It's kind of a three-dimensional representation of your life," Boudreaux says of his collection and designs, which fill about two-thirds of his home's basement and envelope his work station at Hasbro.

"I remember starting out as a co-op and people started to make fun of me because I was working at Kenner," he says. "I get to help work on starships. How cool is that?"

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.