Ralph McQuarrie, the artist who helped George Lucas bring Stars Wars to the big screen, has died aged 82.

The conceptual designer created the look of characters including Darth Vader, Chewbacca and R2-D2 and C-3PO.

He also worked on the original Battlestar Galactica TV series and Steven Spielberg films E.T. and Cocoon, for which he won an Oscar.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17249596

another great artist and designer passes.

I didn't realize that he was so old.

After the original Star Wars came out, I bought the "Art of Star Wars" (edited by Carol Titelman) which had a lot of his artwork in it.

I loved his "angular" style.  It made things look more technical and in some cases menancing.  In addition to sketches, he did tonnes of production paintings.  After Revenge of the Jedi, I bought a reproduction series of his paintings and had them posted on my walls.

He was very talented and prolific.

He was great. I think he was responsible for much of the look of Star Wars. People forget how revolutionary the Star Wars vision was at the time. I bought the portfolio of his production paintings when I was a kid and he was my hero.

He had a long and productive life.

It was McQuarrie's concept art that twigged me onto Star Wars in the first place (Lucas? isn't he the guy that did American Graffitti?  What makes him think he can do Science Fiction?) because the visualizations were waaay above the curve...

Always looked for his work whenever I had the chance.  Even went out and bought the Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars action figs.  You're only dead when you are forgotten, he'll be remembered!