Legend

Doug Chiang

Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist and designer about achieving his lifelong dream of working on Star Wars

ALIEN III SKETCH (1990) A rough blueline pencil layout sketch for a production painting. This piece was created to help bring the project to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).

THE MANDALORIAN (2021) This piece was created for the book cover of The Art of The Mandalorian Season Two. Using Photoshop. Doug aimed to capture the central relationship of the two main characters.

© Disney/Lucasfilm

From humble beginnings through to becoming the production designer and senior vice president/ executive design director at Lucasfilm, Doug Chiang’s career is a shining example of the power of following your dreams. We caught up with Doug to learn more about how he constantly improves as an artist, and how he always creates space for spontaneity in his work.

Tell us about your background as an artist. How did you get started and what has your career been like so far?

I was born in Taiwan and remember doing my first drawings in the dirt with a stick. We weren’t particularly wealthy, and paper was scarce. My only opportunity to draw on paper was in letters that my mom would write to my dad, who was studying engineering in the US. We immigrated to the US and lived in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan when I was about five years old.

Being quiet and shy with few friends, I turned inward to my imagination and drew all the time. I would draw in my textbooks and fill my school notebooks with sketches instead of notes. Drawing became my sanctuary where my imagination could flourish. I loved nature and drew many wildlife drawings. But I was also drawn to the stranger aspects of nature, particularly dinosaurs and monsters.

I grew up watching Godzilla films and became enamoured with mythic monsters. But my passion for drawing truly ignited when I saw Star Wars in 1977. Like many artists of my generation, Star Wars had an overwhelming effect on me. The visuals and storytelling absolutely captivated me – I had never seen or experienced anything like it before.

STAR WARS ARTBOOKS Doug Chiang: The Cinematic Legacy (Volume I) & The Star Wars Legacy (Volume II) is available on 4 December from Abrams. www.abramsbooks.com

PERSONAL ART (1992) This painting combines two of Doug’s passions: wildlife and robots. Painted in acrylics, it captures his distinctive style of blending old and new, nature with technology.