Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012) was an American conceptual designer and illustrator. In 1975, George Lucas commissioned McQuarrie to illustrate scenes from the script for Star Wars. McQuarrie designed many of the film’s characters, including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO.

He also drew concepts for many of the film’s sets.

“I just did my best to depict how I thought the film should look, I really liked the idea. I didn’t think the film would get made. My impression was it was too expensive. I thought there wouldn’t be enough of an audience. It’s too complicated. But George knew a lot of things that I didn’t know.” – Ralph McQuarrie

Some of McQuarrie’s concepts are quite different from the finished film.