Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator," an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's Creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields—bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Ralph McQuarrie.Last week saw Ralph McQuarrie leave our corporeal realm to ascend back into the universe from whence he came. That’s a cosmic context for the inevitable fate of us all, but it’s a fitting way to describe McQuarrie’s passing because he was a concept designer and illustrator who was responsible for some of the most iconic sci-fi films from the last century.
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He is the man whom George Lucas hired to visually conceive the characters in his then unknown story about a space war between an evil empire and a band of rebels under the tutelage of a little green mystic. McQuarrie got on board and created a few illustrations from the scripted scenes, which were integral in convincing 20th Century Fox that this project from an unknown bearded geek might actually be a good idea. McQuarrie then went on to define the look of Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, the Stormtroopers, and many more of the characters from that galaxy far, far away .Previous to working with Lucas, McQuarrie did dental illustrations, worked for Boeing as a technical artist, and animated segments for CBS News. But it was Lucas’ space fantasy that gave him the chance to create and design characters from the ground up in his own dreamworld style, and it was to be his first film project. His designs included the breathing mask for Vader, as well as production paintings for some of the landscapes from the many different planets featured in the series, like Tatooine, Hoth, and even the Death Star. After helping to get the first Star Wars film made, he went on to be the conceptual designer on the two sequels and was an illustrator on The Star Wars Holiday Special, which is a slightly more dubious accolade, but there it is.In addition to helping define the Star Wars universe that’s so familiar to us all, he also worked on a number of other sci-fi and fantasy films that any child of the 80s and 90s will have fond, nostalgic-tinted memories of. These include designing the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the spaceship from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as well as concept art for Cocoon (which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects), *batteries not included, and Jurassic Park. He also contributed designs to Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Golden Child, Masters of the Universe, Nightbreed, and Total Recall.He is credited not only with getting Star Wars green lit, but also helping Lucas to fine tune his vision, providing the first glimpses of what this imaginary world would look like so it could then be further refined to become the pop culture standby we all know and love. And sometimes hate (Jar Jar Binks, we’re looking at you).Below is some of his concept work from the Star Wars trilogy.
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