He’s also worked on a number of other Star Wars shows as well as Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 since moving to Hollywood two decades ago.
Ian Goodwin said he wanted to be an artist from a very young age.
Once he saw a behind the scenes video about the prosthetics from Star Trek: The Next Generation, he knew that’s what he wanted to do.
Goodwin started teaching himself how to do makeup by practicing molding prosthetics onto himself and his friends.
He said that style of trial and error is something he still uses in his work today.
“I destroyed a lot of carpets, I pulled a lot of hair out of myself, I burnt my friends face by trying to cast him with hot wax,” Goodwin said, “there was a lot of mistakes. No one was permanently damaged, just a lot of friendly mistakes.”
Because YouTube didn’t exist at the time, Goodwin had to use the limited amount of books he could find at the library and learn by experience.
He said he worked three jobs to save up the money to move to Los Angeles.
Once he got there, he said working on big projects like ‘The Mandalorian’ was all luck.
“What you have to do as an artist, as an aspiring artist is keep your skills up,” Goodwin said, “you have to be prepared for that one golden moment when an opportunity comes around. You don’t know when it’s going to come but you have to be ready.”
Goodwin is a lifelong Star Wars fan and he said almost all of “The Mandalorian’ crew are fans as well.
He calls himself one of the happiest Star Wars nerds because his work allows him to bring iconic characters to life.
“Star Wars was my lifeblood,” Goodwin said, “the first movie theater I was ever in was for Star Wars. The first VHS we ever watched on our brand new VCR was ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. The first time I ever stood in line for a movie premiere was ‘Return of the Jedi’. So it was in me.”
Goodwin still can’t believe that he earned an Emmy nomination for his work on ‘The Mandalorian’.
“It’s a level of icing on a cake that I really can’t even envision,” Goodwin said, “to me, that’s never been my goal. Growing up, just surviving, and getting to LA was the primary goal and then here, being in LA for over 20 years just working and having my skills ready, paying the bills, those were always my only goals.”
Goodwin believes that having a strong work ethic and setting goals helped him get to where he is today.
He hopes to continue to use his story to inspire others to break the cycle of negativity to achieve their dreams.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.