I was wondering how many of you, guys, have heard about Homeworld. That’s the title of a real-time strategy game from late 1990s / early 2000s 
which revolutionized RTS genre.
But I’m not here to talk about the game itself, its gameplay, story nor the sci-fi world created for it.
I want to focus solely on the design, the “look&feel”. In many parts I find it positively starwars-ish - and even the designers admit to it freely: in “special thanks for inspiration” they mention not only George Lucas, but also …Ralph McQuarrie, Jon Johnston, Nilo Rodis-Jamero ! Looks like the boys at Relic did their homework 
The people responsible for Homeworld looks are Rob Cunningham and Aaron Kambeitz. Please note that I’m taking into consideration only Homeworld and Homeworld 2, not the Homeworld:Cataclysm, as it was made outside Relic (Barking Dog Studios to be precise) - and surprise surprise - I didn’t like the change.
One of the things I was wondering while playing H2 and watching cinematics, which consist of “animated stills” in black&white, is how a Star Wars cartoon would look like if it was made by those artists? Especially when I contrast is with “Clone Wars”. Unfortunately (for the purpose of comparison) the cinematics don’t show many characters or full motion, but let our imagination fill the gap. What if those short cutscenes were made into full cartoon episodes (few minutes each)?
I find the cold, blocky, detailed ship designs from Homeworld better than some SW EU stuff invented for games, books etc. And H2 made a better visual impression on me than “Empire at War”.
Here is some concept art - not necesarily best picks, but this is what I found on the net. I wanted to make some screencaps from the cinematics, but I can’t play the files out of the game - maybe I’ll try to add them later.
check the Concept Artwork part of this H-related website
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/comp_RCNaabel.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/homeworld216.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/concept_RCcarrier.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/concept/images/4.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/concept_china_gate_mid08.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/concept/images/special_tnx_design.jpg
http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/images/concept_rough_flag_shadow.jpg
