8 Early Star Wars Character Designs You Won’t Believe

8. Darth Maul

Star Wars: Episode I villain Darth Maul went through numerous guises before artist Iain McCaig settled on his final design... and some were a load of Phantom Menace.

The demonic-looking Sith was originally envisaged as a zombie-like foe with a bowl of red spaghetti tipped over his head.

Apparently McCaig dreamed up this hideous creature up after Star Wars head honcho George Lucas told him to "draw his worst nightmare". How does the artist sleep at night with things like this haunting his imagination?

Darth Maul's evolution from here is detailed at Film Sketchr, which explains how the approved design was based on the illustrator's second-worst nightmare - clowns.

McCaig took a photo of David Dozoretz from the animatics team and superimposed a series of patterns across his face before adding horns and lurid red flesh.

Although Maul's final appearance is unsettling, what's scares us the most is that fact Jar Jar Binks made it through this stringent approval process.