Before Ralph McQuarrie, there was Colin Cantwell
Long-time Star Wars fans know the name Ralph McQuarrie, who has rightly taken his place in the history of the franchise thanks to his pre-production sketches and paintings, as well as his matte paintings used in the movies, but Colin Cantwell actually predated him sometime in 1974. According to Sierra Dall, Colin’s long-term partner for the last 24 years of his life, Colin was working on the movie before George Lucas had landed a deal with a studio.
In fact, she still has in her possession an important piece of Star Wars history: Colin’s contract with “The Star Wars Corporation,” dated Nov. 1, 1974 and signed by company vice-president and movie producer Gary Kurtz on Dec. 20, 1974. It’s not uncommon in Hollywood for work to begin on a movie before there’s a signed contract in place, and even the signing of said contract can take some time to happen.
While Ralph McQuarrie set to work sketching early versions of C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader, Lucas tasked Colin with developing the first iterations of many spaceships. Colin started with the Y-Wing, whose origin we detailed in a recent blog post, and X-Wing Fighters, giving both Rebellion fighter craft their names too.
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Colin’s Y-Wing is believed to be the first spaceship model approved by Lucas. It appears in some of McQuarrie’s pre-production paintings thanks to the close working relationship between the two artists. As Colin built models, McQuarrie would visit him and take photos of the ships; he also iterated on some of his paintings as Colin’s models evolved over the course of 1975.
Other models of Colin’s work that appeared in McQuarrie’s paintings included his TIE Fighter, which showed up in a concept
painting for a floating Imperial city that was repurposed for Bespin’s Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, and the first version of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon pirate ship, which evolved into Princess Leia’s Blockade Runner after Space: 1999 began airing and Lucas didn’t like the similarity with the Eagle ship on that show. We detailed the Millennium Falcon’s evolution in another blog post.
Colin’s time on Star Wars was short-lived but crucial to the movie. When he died in May 2022, George Lucas said of his work: “[His] artistry helped me build out the visual foundation for so many ships that are instantly recognizable today. His talent was and remains evident for all to see.”
And Joe Johnston, who joined the Star Wars production sometime after Colin and McQuarrie, had this to say: “Colin deserves a lot of credit for the initial vision of what Star Wars looked like.”
So don’t forget: before Ralph McQuarrie, there was Colin Cantwell.
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