http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/03/ralph-mcquarrie-19292012 http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=33315 We've lost a legend today.
I had the Star Wars novelization with the McQuarrie cover (got it before the movie came out). To this day, that painting is the definitive Vader to me. RIP.
His work was full of imagination, regardless of the subject matter. He had a knack for "sellling" the world his was depicting. You could look at his work and just knew there was a story waiting to be told and you had to know what it was.
I can't think of any other single artist who has had so much influence on the visualization of American science fiction. RIP Ralph.
Sad news. My fondest memories of his work from childhood was not his work on Star Wars, but his illustrations for Asimov's Robot stories: there were a ton of them on an "Issac Asimov's Interactive Robot" CD-ROM, and a Time-Life book series on computers reprinted some in their chapter on AI. RIP. He was a true original.
Hard to imagine that Star Wars would have had quite as much appeal as it did, had it not been for his brilliant conceptual art. RIP.
Damn. I remember several years back, Star Wars action figures were released based on his concept designs. Stormtroopers with shields and lightsabres, Boba Fett with a flamethrower, bug-eyed Chewbacca and so on. Although I was kind of getting out of buying action figures, I made it a point to get those, they were cool. McQuarrie definately contributed and is as responsible for the popularity of Star Wars as much as anyone else. RIP.
I rank McQuarrie alongside the legendary Chesley Bonestell as one of the greatest science fiction artists of all time. He will be missed. Alex
Ralph McQuarrie was a genius. I still have my Star Wars Portfolio, too. I used to look at it for hours. Nice eulogy by George Lucas.
Never realized how much of an impact that McQuarrie's work had on me growing up. He was definitely my favorite artist as a kid and his work has withstood the test of time and then some. Thank you, Ralph.