Star Wars, Art of The Clone Wars Book Cover "Ralph McQuarrie Homage" Art (2009)-Russell Chong

Russell G. Chong was one of the senior conceptual artists that worked on the popular 3D animated series, The Clone Wars. He came on board from the start to develop the series when Lucas Animation was still in the early formation phase. Although Russell left Lucasfilm after The Clone Wars, his wonderful designs were continually utilized in other Star Wars properties, including Rebels, The Bad Batch and now in the upcoming Ahsoka live action series.

The indelible work of Legendary Ralph McQuarrie was a huge inspiration to Lucas Animation’s art department and his influence can be seen throughout The Clone Wars and Rebels series. As a homage to McQuarrie’s “Fabulous 5” Star Wars poster concept art, Russell beautifully rendered this painting using some of the techniques he learned from meticulously studying McQuarrie's original production paintings housed at the Lucas Archives. Russell chose acrylic and cel vinyl as the medium to paint this and many other illustrations, just as McQuarrie did for his painted works.

The original McQuarrie design has a bearded version of Han Solo, female Luke, Lemur like Chewbacca, C-3PO & R2-D2 with Y-Wings and concept Death Star in the background. In Russell’s “Fabulous 10” version, he placed the main characters from The Clone Wars show, and added a bunch of ships from that era, including Russell’s revised Y-Wing design and his original Malevolence heavy cruiser (Ship used by General Grievous) in the background. Anakin and C-3PO are the only ones with similar poses from McQuarrie’s original. The rest are lined up in heroic poses with Ahsoka holding her blazing lightsaber in combat ready stance.