Star Wars characters C-3PO, left, and R2-D2 are shown in December 2008. Grant McCune created many of the characters for the first Star Wars film, including R2-D2.Star Wars characters C-3PO, left, and R2-D2 are shown in December 2008. Grant McCune created many of the characters for the first Star Wars film, including R2-D2. (Matt Sayles/Associated Press)

Grant McCune, a special effects artist who earned an Oscar for his work on the 1977 film Star Wars, has died. He was 67.

McCune died Monday at his home in Hidden Hills, Calif., of pancreatic cancer.

McCune created scenes with miniatures, models and special effects for dozens of movies, including Spaceballs, Ghostbusters II and 2008's Rambo.

He began in special effects in 1975 when he and friend Bill Shourt were hired to make a giant white shark model for Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

They got no credit for the film, but McCune caught the eye of the film community and he became chief model maker for Star Wars, where he created R2-D2 and many of the creatures that populate the film.

He later became a partner at Apogee Productions, where he worked on films such as Die Hard, Never Say Never Again and Caddyshack.

McCune went on to launch his own company, Grant McCune Design, which handled films such as Speed, Batman Forever, U.S. Marshals, Red Planet, U-571 and Spider-Man.

He got a second Oscar nomination in 1980 as part of the special effects crew for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He also was chief modelmaker for 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica.

McCune, who trained in biology, advised others wanting to get into his business to take up photography.

"The most important thing is what you see with your eye," he said in an interview with Popular Mechanics.

"Movies are a lot different from reality. This is because you've isolated the viewer's eye to a certain spot — you can't look anywhere else. If you're a photographer, you get the idea of what you need to do by analyzing what it is that needs to be set and where it is and how much detail it should have."

Most models are made on a 1:4 scale, he said, but those that must come in contact with fire or water may need to be full-sized because neither fire nor water can be made to look realistic on the smaller scale.

He is survived by his wife, Katherine; a son, Cole; a daughter, Lily; and a sister, Shelley.