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Classic BSG as Drawn by Star Wars' Concept Artist (PICS)

flickr.com — Concept Artist Ralph McQuarrie brought George Lucas' original 'Star Wars' vision to life and has become one of the most important visionary artists of our time. Amongst his other amazing works, he was also hired to do concept art for the original late 70's Battlestar Galactica TV series. Here are some of those amazing illustrations.

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 2, 2008

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  • craighoxton, on 12/01/2008, -0/+20I'm a big fan of concept art from Syd Mead or Ralph McQuarrie - consider this Dugg!
  • badkins, on 12/01/2008, -6/+18The world needs more of this. Check out the Gulf War explained via a Star Wars poster.
    http://www.showchange.com/content/165-star-wars-gu ...
  • BigSabowski, on 12/02/2008, -0/+10Ralph rocks - 'nuff said.
  • Chairboy, on 12/02/2008, -2/+11Get over it.
  • Impressa, on 12/02/2008, -0/+9Looks great. The details are incredible. How would BSG be if it had been done with this concept art in mind?
  • TheWriteGuy, on 12/02/2008, -0/+8Interesting -- one of McQuarrie's early designs for the Viper would be used as the Starfighter in the Buck Rogers TV series (which was developed and produced by BSG creator/producer Glen A. Larson).
  • AmyVernon, on 12/01/2008, -0/+7Fantabulous.
  • blueblazer17, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6Wow. Very nice!
  • twertyto, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6Ralph McQuarrie is the man. That guy is solely responsible for shaping my sci-fi imagination as a child. That and oddly enough He-Man.
  • CoreyTamas, on 12/02/2008, -0/+6I loved it so much I didn't bury it because of the auto-slideshow.
  • ksgant, on 12/02/2008, -2/+6I met Ralph a few times when I worked in the industry. Was a nice guy...at least he was to me. Always loved his work.
  • whatever01, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Blending pens - http://copicmarker.com/ or http://www.prismacolor.com/sanford/consumer/prisma ...
  • EnvisionThis, on 12/02/2008, -1/+5awesomah power
  • Bluetar, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Sweet!!!!!!
  • kokodhem, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4To some degree it was... I was INSANE for this movie when it hit theaters when I was a kid, and I remember most of this artwork from the various oversized comics and graphic art of the time. Wish I still had some of it. But if you can find the original movie (not the television pilot, but the theatrical release) you'll see a lot of the concepts were used. Like the bug guys.
  • zebragrrl, on 12/02/2008, -0/+4Some of the work you see, particularly some of the title and poster mockups, are done with simple (probably inexpensive in the day) felt-tipped markers.

    Many preliminary art mockups are done with simple markers. While expensive markers are available in every colour of the rainbow, many commercial artists will rely on good-ol "crayola" style markers, because they're cheaper, expendable, and much easier to replace at 3am with a quick trip to WalMart.
  • georgetds, on 12/02/2008, -0/+3Looks like water colour to me - but then, I have absolutely no idea about what I am talking about.
  • cerealjynx, on 12/02/2008, -1/+3Very excellent work. Anyone want to guess at the medium these are done in? Probably oil paints, but maybe something else?
  • SingleMaltWSKY, on 12/02/2008, -1/+3Fantastic. He's responsible for so many amazing images and concepts in sci-fi.
  • a2fan, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2Ovions. http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Ovion

    There were many "alien" species in the original BSG -- but makeup/costuming/scenery budgets were cut because the special effects shots cost so much to produce (and why they were used over and over and over and...)
  • BossKey, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2Part of that was because Buck Rogers had a far lower budget. The whole reason Galactica got canceled, despite its high ratings, was its very high, unsustainable budget. So Buck Rogers could only be done with a lot of cost-cutting and recycling (and boy, did it show).
  • inactive, on 12/02/2008, -1/+3very nice :)
  • Nishnabotna, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2Jesus Christ, people, it's ***** Battlestar Galactica and you don't know what the ant things are? Who the ***** are you people and why the ***** are you here???
  • Hobo97, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2My guess would be gouache.
  • gregdigg, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2Brilliant.
  • GramarNazi, on 12/02/2008, -0/+2Since when are there non-humanoids(/Cylons) in BSG?
  • ShadowXOR, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Frack!
  • MeatMountain, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1I've never actually seen the old Galactica, those ant people are awesome!
  • Sketchcast, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1I would love to see an animated series made based on this concept art. Despite what the hardcore fans say, the original series is too camp to revisit in live-action form. However it would be make a great cartoon if handled properly.
  • M74G, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Wow! That was great!
  • CoreyTamas, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Heyyy some of those ship concepts were used in the TV show/movie "Buck Rogers".

    I did notice a lot of overlap between those two shows. They often used the same stock footage in both.
  • stayputnik, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1I've never seen Battlestar, but this is unbelievably great stuff. I wish I had 1/1,000th the talent shown here...
  • bobbknight, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1This looks like spam, .......must .....digg .........it.........down.
  • pcrow, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Yup. I noticed that too. I also remember that the two shows used identical shuttles..
  • EmperorChow, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1wow...C3PO looking cylons....kinda lame compared to the original and the current iterations. However the rest of the concept art are epic.
  • asnider, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1I've only seen a couple of episodes of the original series, so may I'm just missing out on something but: what's with the insect looking aliens? Were their aliens in the original series, in addition to humans and cylons?
  • Skywise, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Note there don't appear to be any concept drafts of the Viper either... Looks like someone else did it. I'd be curious as to who...
  • giddytonk, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Thanks for posting! I didn't know RM did Galactica as well!
  • EmperorChow, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Cool, didn't think of it that way. Kinda make sense now why the original Cylons kinda look like a Metal Darth Vader.
  • Steeple, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1i loved the buck rogers starfighter, but to get a good one you had to buy the amt kit, because all the di-cast toys had a bar joining the two nose cone spikes together to stop you using it as a rudimentary , kid-brother-blinding-tool
    nanny-state!
  • whatever01, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Given the timing of the whole thing, I'm sure he was basically told to start with something very, very close to Star Wars and then they moved away from that.
  • Steeple, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1yeah, ant things, they ran a pleasure planet honey trap, packed with all different sorts of aliens (think canteena scene in starwars) the cylons tolerated them cause they were "orderly" unlike the chaotic humans.
  • EmperorChow, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1An article on who designed the Cylons and how he used Ralph McQ's Drawings as a starting point

    http://darthmojo.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/true-cyl ...
  • nightstar, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Been a long time since I saw these pictures. Still greate!
  • bunkertor7, on 12/05/2008, -0/+1I think it is totally irrelevant to cheese making.
  • apothekari, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1True but the Satyr episode was hysterical.
    http://www.hulu.com/watch/13993/buck-rogers-the-sa ...
  • BossKey, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1The way it actually happened was that Larson had a show concept that existed before Star Wars and wasn't really like Star Wars in the beginning, and the networks didn't buy it. Then Star Wars came out and blew everyone away, and suddenly Larson's idea had value. They greenlighted it, but steered the designs closer to Star Wars to ride its coattails. I mean, was there any other logical reason the Cylons had to look like a cross between Stormtroopers and Vader, and the bad guys had to have base ships that rotated like the Death Star, and the good guys flew ships that looked like beige jet fighters with a red stripe down the side? An entertainment lounge with bizarre creatures providing the music? Seriously? The copying was pretty shameless and I would have had much more respect for the original BSG if they hadn't fallen for the temptation to be "Imitation Star Wars for TV."

    I also heard the original BSG was supposed to be a miniseries, but due to the high ratings they made it a whole season. This had the effect of diluting the budget and the storylines, weakening the whole thing.
  • BossKey, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1I had seen many of these sketches published before when I was a kid...but it wasn't until I saw this image set today that I learned they went back and used one of the starfighter concepts for Buck Rogers.
  • counterplex, on 12/02/2008, -0/+1Is it just me or do the mouth-pieces of a lot of the humanoids take a lot from storm trooper helmets? His lineage shows in these sketches.
  • MedHead, on 12/03/2008, -0/+1I'm glad these designs didn't make it.
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