Colin Cantwell, the concept artist who designed Star Wars' X-Wing Starfighter, TIE Fighter, Star Destroyer, Death Star, and more, has died at the age of 90.
As reported by THR, Cantwell's long-time partner Sierra Dall confirmed that he passed away at his Colorado home on Saturday, May 23.
While he was perhaps most well-known for his work on Star Wars, his impressive resume also includes special photographic effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, technical dialogue for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and computer graphics design consultant for WarGames.
For 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cantwell worked closely with Stanley Kubrick and "persuaded him not to start the movie with a 20-minute conference table discussion" alongside being instrumental in creating the film's opening.
For WarGames, he programmed the Hewlett Packard monitors to show the bomb scenes on NORAD screens as the WOPR almost launched nuclear weapons. His work on that project would led him to program software that "took the actual Hewlett Packard from a few colors to 5,000 colors.
Cantwell was born in San Francisco in 1932 and was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a partial retina detachment at an early age. During a Reddit AMA in 2016, he shared that the cure was to stay in a dark room with a heavy vest on his chest to prevent coughing attacks.
"I spent nearly two years of my childhood immobilized in this dark room. Suffice to say, nothing else could slow me down after that!” Cantwell said.
He would continue on to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in animation and would then be personally invited by Frank Lloyd Wright to attend his School of Architecture.
Prior to taking Hollywood and that galaxy far, far away by storm, Cantwell worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA during the '60s space race between the U.S. and Russia and created educational programs for the public to better understand what was going on.
He was even the one who fed information to Walter Cronkite as he made his historic moon landing broadcast in 1969.
Outside of all this work, Cantwell also found the time to write two science fiction novels, CoreFires 1 and CoreFires 2.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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As reported by THR, Cantwell's long-time partner Sierra Dall confirmed that he passed away at his Colorado home on Saturday, May 23.
While he was perhaps most well-known for his work on Star Wars, his impressive resume also includes special photographic effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, technical dialogue for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and computer graphics design consultant for WarGames.
For 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cantwell worked closely with Stanley Kubrick and "persuaded him not to start the movie with a 20-minute conference table discussion" alongside being instrumental in creating the film's opening.
For WarGames, he programmed the Hewlett Packard monitors to show the bomb scenes on NORAD screens as the WOPR almost launched nuclear weapons. His work on that project would led him to program software that "took the actual Hewlett Packard from a few colors to 5,000 colors.
Cantwell was born in San Francisco in 1932 and was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a partial retina detachment at an early age. During a Reddit AMA in 2016, he shared that the cure was to stay in a dark room with a heavy vest on his chest to prevent coughing attacks.
"I spent nearly two years of my childhood immobilized in this dark room. Suffice to say, nothing else could slow me down after that!” Cantwell said.
He would continue on to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in animation and would then be personally invited by Frank Lloyd Wright to attend his School of Architecture.
Prior to taking Hollywood and that galaxy far, far away by storm, Cantwell worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA during the '60s space race between the U.S. and Russia and created educational programs for the public to better understand what was going on.
He was even the one who fed information to Walter Cronkite as he made his historic moon landing broadcast in 1969.
Outside of all this work, Cantwell also found the time to write two science fiction novels, CoreFires 1 and CoreFires 2.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
Continue reading...