After studying at the Art Center School, Los Angeles, he started working as a technical illustrator for Boeing, as well as designing film posters and animating CBS News’s coverage of the Apollo space program at the three-man company Reel Three.[2][3] While there, McQuarrie was asked by Hal Barwood to produce some illustrations for a film project he and Matthew Robbins were starting.George Lucas commissioned McQuarrie to illustrate several scenes from the script of the film, Star Wars. He also worked as matte artists on that film and the next “The Empire strikes back”. As conceptual designer he contributed for many science fiction films.
McQuarrie working on a painting fro Star Wars.
Illustrator and designer Ralph MQuarrie contributed to create also the mattes for “The Empire strikes back”
Filmography:
- Back to the Future… The Ride (1991) (conceptual artist) (uncredited)
- Nightbreed (1990) (conceptual artist)
- *batteries not included (1987) (conceptual artist)
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) (visual consultant)
- Cocoon (1985) (conceptual artist)
- Return of the Jedi (1983) (conceptual artist)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (Spaceship design)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (illustrator: ILM)
- The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (Illustrator/ matte artist)
- Battlestar Galactica (1978) TV series(production and concept illustrator)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (Mother Ship designer)
- Star Wars (1977) (Illustraor / Matte artist)