Whereas the good Ralph McQuarrie is rightly remembered as the first visionary behind the look of the Star Wars universe, he wasn’t the one artist enjoying a serious position within the creation of the unique trilogy. There was additionally Colin Cantwell.
Born in 1932, Cantwell had an unbelievable profession that ventured properly past creative pursuits. From working at NASA on the Apollo 11 mission (he was accountable for passing info on the mission on to TV presenter Walter Cronkite) to serving to Hewlett Packard design computer systems, he additionally wrote two sci-fi novels and helped Stanley Kubrick map out the opening scenes of 2001: A Area Odyssey.
It’s for his early work on Star Wars, although, that he has turn into greatest recognized. Employed early within the unique movie’s improvement, in 1974-75, Cantwell is the originator of lots of the sequence’ most iconic and memorable ships, together with the X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE Fighter, Star Destroyer, Landspeeder, Sandcrawler and Corellian Corvette (which was initially alleged to be the Millennium Falcon). He was additionally the unique designer of the Dying Star.
Whereas different artists like McQuarrie and particular results guru Joe Johnston would later tweak these designs, their unique imaginative and prescient—from the X-Wing’s crossed, folding wings to the TIE Fighter’s bowtie silhouette—was all Cantwell, as you may see within the photographs beneath:
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Whereas each single one of many designs you may see above have been modified in a roundabout way by McQuarrie and Johnston, there’s one Cantwell creation that made it into Star Wars with out anybody making any modifications by any means. In one of many scenes simply after Luke first meets C-3PO and R2-D2, he’s seen kicking again enjoying with a mannequin of a T-16 Skyhopper, which is a mannequin constructed completely from Cantwell’s sketches.
Cantwell was 90, and had reportedly been affected by Alzhemiers for a number of years. He’s survived by his associate Sierra Dall.
