Paintings

  Painting can be a way to capture a place or event in great detail and beauty in a unique way to the specific artist creating it. It takes many years of practice to reach the skill to become a great painter but the end result of all that effort can be awe-inspiring masterpiece's to share with the world. The immensity of the star wars galaxy has inspired many artists to create wonderful paintings of many events and places depicted in movies, books, and video games.

Dave Dorman|The Hildebrants

Ralph Mcquarrie

Ralph McQuarrie was the design consultant and conceptual artist for the original Star Wars trilogy, he helped to bring the vision of George Lucas to life. With just Lucas's script as a reference, McQuarrie played a pivotal role in creating the look of Star Wars with his many paintings.

Born on June 13, 1929 in Gary, Indiana, McQuarrie's earliest influences were his grandparents who were both artists. He began art classes as a child and through his young adulthood until he earned a position as a technical illustrator at Boeing Aircraft Company where he illustrated the latest designs in air and spacecraft.

George Lucas needed to convince Twentieth-Century Fox to finance his upcoming project, Star Wars. To sell them on the idea so he commissioned McQuarrie to create several paintings to show the studio executives. The presentation was a hit and soon McQuarrie found himself painting additional concept paintings, as well as helping with matte paintings during production.

Through the course of three Star Wars movies (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) McQuarrie's sketches and production paintings served as the framework of which Lucas and his team of set designers, make-up artists and special effects wizards used to help make star wars come to life.

One of McQuarrie's most important contributions to the Star Wars saga is the image of Darth Vader. Less horrifying characters which McQuarrie had a hand in conceptualizing include R2-D2, C-3PO, Chewbacca and Yoda.

In addition to his film and television work, McQuarrie created artwork for Star Wars books including The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, The Mos Eisley Cantina Pop-Up Book and Jabba's Palace Pop-Up. McQuarrie lives in Berkeley, Calif. with his wife Joan.
 

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