John Mollo recalls that this blueprint was produced following a meeting with George Lucas at the end of a day of pre-production at the end of February, 1976. According to the Shooting Schedule in Lot 196, filming of Star Wars began on 20th March, 1976 in Tunisia and resumed in England on 5th April, 1976, where the majority of the Cantina scene was shot at Elstree on 13th and 14th April, 1976.

To produce this blueprint of all the Cantina characters, George Lucas described the characters as he envisaged them to Mollo. At this stage, make-up supervisor Stuart Freeborn had already come up with the designs for the characters' heads and Mollo had the task of designing the characters' bodies to go with Freeborn's designs. According to Mollo, around six of these blueprints would have been produced for himself, George Lucas, the make-up department and art department.

All the characters' names that appear on this blueprint were the initial production names. Lucas was more concerned with the logistics as to whether the characters were going to get made in time for shooting, as Stuart Freeborn was apparently ill during the initial shooting of the Cantina scene, and the art department were unable to complete enough aliens on time. Since then however, with the publication of numerous off-shoot books and games endorsed by Lucasfilm, the characters have all acquired names which are now widely - for instance, Wierd Girl became Leesub Sirln, The Colonel became Solo Mahal, the Plutonian - Nabrun Leids, Snaggletooth - Takeel, the Grubby Human - Dr. Evazan, the Walrus - Ponda Baba etc.