Artist Ralph McQuarrie was born #OTD in 1929. He is probably best known as the primary concept artist for the Star Wars movies, but he also did work for Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and E.T., and he won an Academy Award for his work on Cocoon.
Image: Ralph McQuarrie
McQuarrie was one of the first artists hired by young director George Lucas to develop concept art that would accompany his Star Wars pitch.
Many characters, places, and vehicles he envisioned made it to the films almost unchanged. That includes McQuarrie’s early design for Chewbacca, seen below.
One of the other artists who heavily influenced the designs in the film was John Berkey. George Lucas purchased his painting "The Mechanical Planet" (left) and used it as the basis for the Death Star.
McQuarrie's 1975 painting "Y-Wing Attacks the Death Star" (right), commissioned by Lucas, transforms Berkey's mechanical planet into a recognizable Death Star, and depicts the Rebel Y-Wing Fighters in essentially their final form.
Some of the designs were a little "too smooth" for Lucas, like this imagining of the Death Star trench run.
McQuarrie loved the shadow of the background X-Wing on the trench wall, but Lucas had the modelers add lots of greebles in the final version.
A lot of iconic character design came out of McQuarrie playing with the characters in those early paintings!
The idea of a villain moving between ships in space suggested the need for some sort of breathing apparatus. This resulted in the masked Darth Vader design.
Image: Ralph McQuarrie
And while there were some changes later on, especially to C-3PO's torso and face, McQuarrie gets the essence of the droids right from the outset.
That first C-3PO was clearly influenced by the robot Maria from "Metropolis." One of the other concept artists, seeing the early designs, suggested to McQuarrie that C-3PO should have big round eyes that always looked startled.
Robert McNees