Ryan Church

Ryan Church is a Concept Design Supervisor at Lucasfilm. He has been behind many of the concepts shown on StarWars.com's Art of Revenge, and is known for his vehicle designs, upon which many of the vehicles in the latter two episodes of the Prequel trilogy are based.

BiographyEdit

Church studied Industrial design at Art Center and graduated with honors in Transportation Design.

He worked at Walt Disney Imagineering as a show concept designer before joining Industrial Light & Magic in the digital feature division in 1998. Shortly after the release of The Phantom Menace, he moved onto JAK Films, where he served as a Concept Design Supervisor on Episode II and Episode III, and a Senior Art Director in their post-productions. He would continue with ILM through the production of War of the Worlds, where his designs proved pivotal to the final look of the towering Tripods in the film.

Church spent the next 8 years in Southern California as a concept designer, working on high profile films such as James Cameron's Avatar, J.J. Abram's Star Trek films, Michael Bay's Transformers films as well as numerous TV and video game projects including Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and Dead Space.  

In 2013, Church returned to ILM as a concept artist on Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens.  

Original designsEdit

Ryan Church is probably the artist that has exerted the most influence of any individual on the worlds of Episodes II and III. Although he specializes in futuristic vehicles and spacecraft, his contributions run the spectrum of design, from planets to characters.

• AT-TE
• Hailfire droid tank
• Corporate Alliance tank droid

• ARC-170
• Alderaan (Episode III appearance)
• Tantive IV (Episode III variation)
• Mygeeto
• Felucia
• Kashyyyk (Episode III appearance)
• Polis Massa
• Crab droid
• Buzz droid
• Octuptarra combat tri-droid
• Octuptarra magna tri-droid

BibliographyEdit

• The Art of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
• The Art of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
• Star Wars: Visionaries
• Star Wars Art: Concept
• The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
• The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

SourcesEdit

•  The Art of Visual Storytelling: Ryan Church and Erik Tiemens on StarWars.com (content now obsolete; backup link)
•  Meet the Episode III Art Department on StarWars.com (content now obsolete; backup link)
• Ryan Church's official site
• Ryan Church at the Internet Movie Database