Ralph McQuarrie: Concept Artist
McQuarrie’s futuristic art style solidified the backing of 20th Century Fox to produce one of the biggest Films in history. He influenced the way Darth Vader, C3P0, Yoda and other characters looked, as well as the appearance of Tatooine, The Death Star, Cloud City and other settings in the original Star Wars trilogy.
In 1975 young filmmaker George Lucas commissioned McQuarrie to illustrate several scenes from the script of his plan for a space fantasy film. He sought visual reference material to support his pitch to film studios. McQuarrie's concept paintings were instrumental in helping Lucas to win approval from 20th Century Fox; armed with vivid illustrations of his planned movie, Lucas was able to convince Fox executives to take a gamble and fund his Star Wars project. Despite their skepticism, it became a huge success upon release in 1977. Among McQuarrie's Star Wars portfolio were concept paintings depicting scenes on the planet Tatooine, inside the Mos Eisley cantina, inside the Death Star and on the moon of Yavin. During filming, Lucas ensured that many shots reproduced McQuarrie's paintings exactly, such was his esteem for McQuarrie's work. McQuarrie has said of his work on Star Wars, "I thought I had the best job that an artist ever had."
McQuarrie designed many of the film's characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2D2, C3PO, Yoda and many concepts for the film's sets. His production painting of R2-D2 and C-3PO wandering in the desert on the planet Tatooine was the first to be completed.
McQuarrie's importance to the Star Wars franchise, holds a unique position when it comes to defining much of the look of the "Star Wars" universe.
McQuarrie also worked on other sci-fi projects, including Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek IV, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.