Thursday, October 13, 2011

Star wars concept art by Ralph McQuarrie

Ralph McQuarrie was the concept artist who brought the visual style to Star Wars way back in the seventies. He worked closely with George Lucas to design characters, space ships sets and almost everything you saw in Star Wars. Some of his original concept designs very drastically from what eventually ended up on screen, but you can definitely still see the influence. You can check out his website here http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/. This particular image interests me as I recently learned that c4po's design was conceptually a male version of the iconic android from Metropolis. You can see the resemblance to the machinenmensch here very clearly, of course some features were altered to better match his robot butler type personality.

2 comments:

  1. its really interesting to see how much the designs have changed

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  2. This guy has to be one of my biggest influences, and I didn't even know it. Star Wars = life for me, and I didn't know he worked on some of my other favorites like Battlestar Galactica, Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. I gained a new level of appreciation for him and I wish to work in the concept art industry for gaming and movies.

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