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| Early McQuarrie design |
Doug Chiang.
These are just two of my favourite Star Wars people.
To paraphrase Maz Kanata, "Who are they?"
They are two of the biggest visual influences on Star Wars. Ralph McQuarrie was the original concept design artist who translated the ideas George had in his brain by way of paint to paper. Doug Chiang was the lead artist for the prequels are carried over into Rogue One and the Force Awakens.
And boy, between them and about probably 1000 other artists, many a conceptual drawing has been made before even a foot of film is shot or recorded in any Star Wars movie. Indeed, word has it that the U-Wing in Rogue One went through 781 different drawings and iterations before the final design proof was approved to get things into production. 781!
The brief of a concept designer is simple. Take the ideas the director and script have and turn them into something visual.
Something that can be built.
Something that can be sewn and worn.
Something that can be rendered to binary code and projected across the stars.
Something, something Star Wars.
Easy eh?
Here's many many pages of concept art that have been designed by Chiang, McQuarrie and a host of others that have been given the famous 'OK' by George Lucas.
Original Trilogy concept art
ANH was the movie that started it all. Sure it was standing on the shoulders of giants such as Kubrick and that guy the directed Forbidden Planet but no one had ever envisaged science fiction in space like George Lucas,
- Ralph McQuarrie design sketches including the original C3PO and Chewbacca drawings
- How did the design of Darth Vader come about?
- Concept art of Han Solo drawing pistols with a tailed green goblin called Greedo
- Here's some original Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars concept artwork. The man's mind must have been an amazing place to play in!
- The ten best pieces of Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars concept art
- Original 'The Empire Strikes Back' concept artwork by Ralph McQuarrie
- What did Chewbacca originally look like?
- Luke takes on Jedi's Rancor concept art by Ralph McQuarrie
- Just some Ewok concept art by Ralph McQuarrie
- Ralph McQuarrie's initial Cloud City sketch compared to the final concept design
Prequel films concept designs
Sequel Trilogy movie conceptual artwork
Kind of like how Mortal Engines keeps rolling on, so do the Star Wars movies. Here's some concept designs from a movie that was 40 years in the makin
- BB-8 - They see me rollin', they hear me going beep bop blurp beep....
- Doug Chiang's Kylo Ren concept art
- The famous Force Awakens concept art leak drawings
- How the Force Awakens was inspired by Ralph McQuarrie concept art work
- The Starkiller base was inspired by original Star Wars designer, Ralph McQuarrie
Rogue One
Given Rogue One's director, Gareth Edwards was known for making is own special effects for his first movie, the expectations about the quality of the look of Rogue One and how it ties into the feel of A New Hope were huge. Edwards delivered visually like no other Star Wars movie had and a large part of that was the effort that went into the design. Maybe it was the methanol in the beer...
- Just a casual chat about Vader and his Castle in #RogueOne
- Doug Chiang's insights into the design of Rogue One
- The Art of Rogue One book