The Daily Express have published a puff piece about Andrew Ainsworth (“the designer of the original stormtrooper”) today in an article by Gabriella Geisinger (see “How the Stormtrooper became Star Wars icon ‘More popular than Michelangelo’s David'”). Ainsworth even compares himself to Michelangelo. In the article, Ainsworth gives passing mention to Ralph McQuarrie for his original “sketch” of the Stormtrooper, and as in past interviews of course no mention at all of Liz Moore (who was responsible for the original Stormtrooper helmet sculpt) or Brian Muir (who was the first to sculpt armor parts). And no mention of John Barry, (the production designer) or John Mollo (the wardrobe designer) who were also part of the team that created the Stormtrooper. To be fair, Ainsworth deserves credit for what he did contribute to the original Star Wars film… but he always seems eager to take much more credit than is due.
To read the full article from The Daily Express, head over to their official site at www.express.co.uk:
As noted in past articles published on the Original Prop Blog, one of the more interesting developments to come from the UK court case between Lucasfilm and Andrew Ainsworth is in regards to the argument over the original sculpt based on the Ralph McQuarrie conceptual artwork.
Below are samples of the designs created by Ralph McQuarrie, who came up with the overall appearance of the Stormtroopers for the first film:
The following images were released on the Replica Prop Forum many years ago now. These show two helmet sculpts which did not originate with Andrew Ainsworth, but, as I understand it, Liz Moore, and (as it’s been reported) predated Ainsworth’s work on the film. The example on the left is very close in appearance to the final Stormtrooper helmet design.
You can learn more in past articles on the Original Prop Blog: LINK
Jason DeBord