Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo

The Nostromo

The Nostromo

1) Ron Cobb borrowed from Chris Foss
Chris Foss before Ridley Scott dropped him from the production had been creating many concept drawings for the design of the Nostromo, and so it went that when they needed to design the final thing.

Denofgeek.com uncovered the fact from interviewing Ron Cobb that although Chris Foss was not directly involved with the design of the final Nostromo, Roger Christian went away with Chris Foss's amd Ron Cobb's designs to build the final spaceship and while Ron Cobb's exterior design loosely inspired by Foss' work was used for the Nostromo,  one can find that features from Chris Foss' other designs found their way into the ship.

Ron Cobb's Nostromo

1. Ron Cobb: "Creating spacecraft exteriors came easily to Foss. His mind and imagination seemed to embody the entire history of the industrial revolution. He could conjure up endless spacecraft designs suggesting submarines, diesel locomotives, Mayan interceptors, Mississippi river boats, jumbo space arks, but best of all (ask Dan) were his trademark aero-spacecraft-textures like panels, cowlings, antennae, bulging fuel tanks, vents, graphics etc. As the months passed, along with two or three temporary directors, Chris began to have problems caused by his spectacular creativity. No one, in a position to make a decision seemed to be able to make up their mind and/or choose one of his designs. I think Chris was turning out spacecraft designs the decision makers found too original." (Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview) 
2. Ron Cobb"The truth of the matter is, as Chris said, we both influenced each other, I think I borrowed from him more than he borrowed from me" .(Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)

2) Upper Thrusters and main body shape

Tug with enigmatic upper engines

The main shape of the Nostromo is similar is near enough borrowed from the vessel below left with "Fountain Line" written along the side of it's "Proton Drive" engine, while the upper engines upon the Nostromo are noticeably very reminiscent of Chris Foss' snake like space ship segmented like a train on the right.

The "Fountain Line" tug

Nostromo's upper engine intake openings

3) The Engine Intakes

A point about the design for the Nostromo is that maybe it can be said to resemble a gothic tomb. Chris Foss had drawn numerous designs for ships with cavernous intake openings for engines, but one with the most haunting features is his design for a pyramid interior with it's vast rectangular tunnel with sloping ends that taper to the rectangular mouths of these entrances, perhaps here we are seeing the origins of the characteristic engine intakes openings

detail from pyramid temple interior

Chris Foss pyramid temple interior

4. Nostromo's initial colour of yellow

The Nostromo model initially went through a yellow paint scheme that Jon

untitled painting by Chris Foss
used on the cover of  E.E. 'Doc' Smith's
novel "Planet of Treacher"

Sorenson acknowledged was inspired by Chris Foss designs.

(Also read the section on the yellow Nostromo)

Wmmvrrvrrmm: Also I keep thinking about how the Nostromo model when it went through it's yellow paint scheme reminds me of Chris Foss' paintings, he has been known to paint yellow spacecrafts. I wonder if the paint scheme was inspired by his work (Alien Experience.com, June 21, 2009)

Jon Sorenson: Absolutely correct! It was inspired by Chris Foss' designs.(Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009)