Richard Michael Sternbach (born July 6, 1951) is an illustrator who is best known for his space illustrations and his work on the Star Trek television series.
Early years
Born July 6, 1951, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1969 Sternbach enrolled at the University of Connecticut with an art major, but after a couple of years switched to marine biology. After leaving University, he became an illustrator for books and magazines, with his first cover illustration published on the October 1973 issue of Analog magazine.
During 1974 to 1976 he produced several original works of art for the Gengras Planetarium, part of the Children's Museum of West Hartford, in Connecticut. The works included airbrush paintings of the Earth as a primeval planet. It is unknown if these works are still in possession of CMWH, the original owner and client of Sternbach.
In 1976 he helped found the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA), to give legal advice to science fiction and fantasy artists on contracts and copyrights.
In 1977, inspired by the story of artist Ralph McQuarrie's move from working in the aerospace industry to working for George Lucas on Star Wars, Sternbach moved to California to seek illustration work in the film and television industry. He also helped to create the animated asteroid wormhole sequence and helped source material from NASA/JPL that was used in the design of V'ger.
With four other artists, in 1981 Sternbach helped found the non-profit International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA), to arrange projects that promote and foster space art.
In 1983, he worked as an illustrator on The Last Starfighter, story-boarding visual effects sequences and developing texture maps for computer rendered space scenes.
After Star Trek, as Scenic Artist on Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Sternbach contributed control panel designs to the Prometheus station set and the Athena 7 ship cockpit and also designed and rendered animated loops to play on background set displays.
Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond
In January 1987, Sternbach was hired along with Andrew Probert (the first two art department hires) to start design work for a new Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Sternbach helped define the look of the 24th century that would be used throughout The Next Generation and the series that followed it, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Props such as the phasers, tricorders, PADDs and the communicator badge were all based on his designs.
During his time in the Star Trek art department at Paramount, Sternbach was also responsible for a number of starship designs including the Cardassian Galor class starships, the Klingon Vor'cha and Negh'Var class starships and Federation starships such as the Prometheus class, the Dauntless, the Nova class and the USS Voyager itself.