Ralph Mcquarrie

American conceptual designer and illustrator who worked on the original Star Wars trilogy, the original Battlestar Galactica television series, the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and the film Cocoon, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1985. McQuarrie designed many of the Star Wars film's characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO and drew many concepts for the film's sets. Among McQuarrie's Star Wars portfolio were concept paintings depicting scenes on the planet Tatooine, inside the Mos Eisley cantina, inside the Death Star and on the moon of Yavin. It was McQuarrie who first suggested that Darth Vader should wear a breathing apparatus. When George Lucas began work on his sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), McQuarrie was once again brought in to supply previsualization artwork. His sketches and production paintings established the appearance of some of the saga's most enduring elements, such as the gigantic AT-AT Walkers in the battle on the ice planet Hoth and the wizened elf creature Yoda. McQuarrie designed the alien ships in Steven Spielberg's films Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). McQuarrie died, aged 82, on 3 March 2012 in his Berkeley, California home, from complications of Parkinson's disease. Link to Wikipedia biography