Extra Art Attack, Ralph McQuarrie version

Star Wars concept artist extraordinaire Ralph McQuarrie!  Here's a sampling of some of his work.

For this first wave of his material, I'm mostly posting stuff that actually made it into the film.  Even the framing and composition of the shots is often directly reflecting the McQuarrie concept art.  But, he's also got some stuff that didn't make the films, which is often more interesting.

Of course, now that I've said that, my very first image is one of the early drafts of the characters, including a Han/Obiwan hybrid character (named Luke), the Zeb concept of Chewbacca and Luke as a girl.

Return of the Jedi war council.

The surface of Yavin IV as the X-wings and Y-wings go off to fight the Death Star.

Star Destroyers found... is that Endor? 

Speaking of, this incomplete Death Star 2.0 looks almost exactly like it does in the movie.

As does Jabba's Palace.

As does Cloud City.

On the other hand, this older Star Wars logo with a totally different font and appearance is really cool.

I don't know what this was originally for, but I have this image as the cover on a d20 RPG product, the Alien Anthology.

One of the most famous of the concept art images; Threepio and Artoo after crash-landing on Tatooine.  Threepio looks especially Metropolis-esque in this picture.  On purpose, no doubt.

Another famous concept art image; which was translated almost exactly into the movies.

Another Jabba's palace image.

And finally, the trench run.

Like I said, this doesn't do much in terms of pushing the envelope.  This art is almost exactly the same as designs later used in the movies with only a few minor exceptions.