Ray Bradbury died on Tuesday, June 5. He was 91 – although to be honest, I’d thought that he’d died years ago. It’s just hard to imagine an author of such classic science fiction whose most celebrated works were all written in the early 1950’s and who had such a luddite bent still kicking around in the age of iPhones.

I thought I should post these illustrations for his short story “A Sound of Thunder,” which I drew for a project in my sophomore English class, as a memorial. I’ve come a long way artistically since 2005 – the anatomy in the final drawing makes me want to avert my eyes in horror – but creating these illustrations was a great challenge and a lot of fun for me.

Ralph McQuarrie, the legendary concept artist behind the original Star Wars trilogy, the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Cocoon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Jurassic Park, died at his home on Saturday at the age of 82.

Star Wars wouldn’t have been half the film it was without this guy. The visual style of everything in the Star Wars universe was based on Ralph McQuarrie’s art. The Millennium Falcon, the Death Star, the X-wing, lightsabers, Darth Vader, Cloud City, R2-D2 and C-3PO – all of these were taken directly from his concept illustrations.

Not a bad legacy.