The painting of the Death Star trench run was also completed in November of 1975. Again, not exactly like it was portrayed in the film, Ralph “envisioned a smooth trench — there were a lot of greeblies in the finished film. I liked the idea of seeing the cast shadow of the ship on the wall.”

The Tusken Raiders painting was completed much later, in December of 1975. Ralph told me that he “figured there were probably thousands of years worth of battles above Tatooine, and as a result, wrecks might have fallen from the sky and been buried in the sand.”

Ralph’s painting of the Death Star trench, and the Millennium Falcon being drawn in by the tractor beam, was obviously completed later in the schedule after the ship concept had been changed. The painting closely matches the finished film as Ralph also created the matte painting used for this scene.