Lore within the original 1987 Star Wars Sourcebook established that the Falcon had three separate droid brains controlling all of its subsystems, but they had never been illustrated. Author Ryder Windham decided which model droids they came from, and Reiff and Trevas came up with their appearance. The R3 astromech brain was an abstract design made to look very technical and capable of complex computations to run a starship. One thought was that the V-5 transport droid brain should be simplistic and blocky since it belonged to a vehicle and not an automaton.
As a little Easter Egg the V-5 brain was modeled rather closely after a brain enhancement module installed into the Dinobots on the original Transformers cartoon from the '80s. "We are both a bit of classic Transformers fans too and the brain from one of those big lumbering robots seemed perfect," says Trevas.
The slicer droid brain we wanted to appear "smart" almost organic and human like. It's a complex code breaker so maybe it's capable of more abstract thought. Chris Reiff thought of the famous movie cyborg Robocop and designed something similar to his exposed head. Those three very different designs brains are the artists visualized the conflicting personalities making up the Falcon's temperamental computer.
