At the time of Boba Fett’s first on-screen appearance in the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), all the animators had to go on was test footage of the unpainted white costume.

The use of pastel blues and greens was partly a homage to the French sci-fi artist Moebius (at the request of George Lucas) and partly because many homes still had black-and-white TVs, so characters needed to contrast with the dark backgrounds.