> "For Darth Vader, George just said he would like to have a very tall, dark fluttering figure that had a spooky feeling like it came in on the wind," McQuarrie says. "He mentioned the look of Arab costumes, all tied up in silk and rags. He liked the idea of Vader having a big hat, like a fisherman's hat, a big long metal thing that came down.
George wanted him to have some sort of mask, because they were supposed to leap down from this big ship to a smaller ship that the rebels were in. The space suits began as being necessary for their survival in space, but the suits became part of their character. I made three or four little sketches, which he looked at and said, 'That's not right, I kind of like that hat, but maybe you should fool around with it a little bit more? So I made some more sketches. He was going up to San Francisco to work on the script, and came down in another week and a half or two weeks to see what I was doing." -Ralph McQuarrie, Making of Star Wars
As talented as McQuarrie was and as important as he was to the films, his job was to produce illustrations that conformed to Lucas's creative inclinations. There would be no Darth Vader if Lucas hadn't given him these instructions and then helped to refine his illustrations. And we see the same level of quality when Lucas works with other talented artists--a level of quality many others have failed to produce even when working with the same talent.