He has two tabs for both Alien and Aliens, among many other projects it seems he was unfortunately not credited with
Let's start with the obvious,
AlienThis is his personal recollection of how the Nostromo was designed, in his words.
QuoteIn the late seventies Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett asked me to create a series of small illustrations to help them pitch and sell their latest script. Once they acquired a producer (Gordon Carroll of Brandywine productions) O'Bannon hatched his plot to convince Carroll, and all who would listen, to immediately hire what Dan considered to be his dream team for conceptual art and design, Chris Foss, me, and later, Moebius (Jean Giraud) and H R Giger. As a result I soon found myself hidden away at Fox Studios in an old rehearsal hall above an even older sound stage with Chris Foss and O'Bannon, trying to visualize Alien. For up to five months Chris and I (with Dan supervising) turned out a large amount of artwork, while the producers, Gordon Carroll, Walter Hill and David Giler, looked for a director.
When I met Chris I had long been a fan of his atmospheric paintings and illustrations, but I was particularly pleased to discover he had a great sense of humor and, therefore, was very easy to work with. He was also extremely prolific. He could turn out three finished paintings and ten detailed designs for every one of my, rather labored, pencil, and felt tip sketches.
It was determined initially (by Dan, of course) that I would tackle the interiors of the earth ship Nostromo, while Chris would design the exterior. It didn't take long for this division of labour to become a bit problematic for the two of us.
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 (as Dan always attested) were his trademark aero-spacecraft textures like panels, cowlings, antennae, bulging fuel tanks, vents, graphics etc. As the months passed, and two or three directors came and went, 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.
My problem with designing Nostromo's interiors, the control bridge, corridors, auto doc (or med lab), bulkhead doors, the food deck, etc., was that I grew up with a deep fascination for astronomy, astrophysics, and most of all, aerospace flight. Thus my design approach has always been that of a frustrated engineer (as well as a frustrated writer when it came to cinema design). I tend to subscribe to the idea that form follows function. If I'm to arrive at a cinematic spacecraft design that seamlessly preserves, as in this case, the drama of the script, the audience has to experience it as something impressive and believable.
My method for designing the Nostromo interiors was to emulate the engineering of the entire landing shuttle as though it were real, from the interior to the exterior and back again. So, while I was not supposed to be spending any time deriving exterior designs from my all-encompassing technique, I did produce them if only as a personal guide to making the interior sets more interesting.
Later, when we were all in London at Shepperton studios with Ridley Scott as director, and deadlines for completing set and model construction were rapidly approaching, the choice as to which Chris Foss design would be used as Nostromo's exterior was yet to be made.
Finally, Brian Johnson the Special Effects Supervisor, under pressure to build the large Nostromo model, went into the deserted art department and out of frustration, grabbed all the Chris Foss designs off the wall and took them to Bray studios. There he would choose the design himself in order to have enough time to build the damn thing.
Well I soon found out that Brian found and took all of my exterior design sketches as well. About a month later I was told that Brian had used my sketch, Nostromo A (see Nostromo B for comparison), as the basis for the model, even to the extent that it was painted yellow. Ridley found the color a bit garish and had it repainted grey.
Gallery of Concept Art, Polaroids, Labeled by Him (Some we've seen, some I don't believe we have)
I'll separate them into categories
The Planet and The DerelictEarly Design of the Planetoid
Film Used Nostromo Navigational Contour Map of Planetoid
Early Alien Temple With The "All Seeing Eye"
Early Design of the Derelict and Egg Silo From an Earlier Script
Early Design of the Derelict From an Earlier Script
Early Alien Ship interior, My Take On the Space Jockey, The Source of the Emergency Signal
The Nostromo Designs (Exterior)Early Design of the Nostromo From an Earlier Script
Early Design of the Nostromo From an Earlier Script, Derided as The "Merry-Go-Round"
Early Design of the Nostromo From an Earlier Script
Early Design of the Nostromo (Then Snark) From an Earlier Script
Near Final Nostromo, Often Called The 'Tug' and "Surveyor" At This Point
Near Final Nostromo, Often Called The 'Tug' and "Surveyor" At This Point
Near Final Design of the Nostromo
The Nostromo Designs (Interior Set Design)Early Design of the Nostromo's Control Bridge
Early Design of the Nostromo's Control Bridge
Near Final Design of the Nostromo's Control Bridge
Seats For The Bridge Crew (Largely Remained Unchanged)
Seats For The Bridge Crew (Largely Remained Unchanged)
Extremely Early Design of the Nostromo's (Then, Leviathan's) Passageways (At That Point, The Class Conflict Angle Hadn't Been Established)
Early Design of the Nostromo's Various Passageways (At That Point, The Class Conflict Angle Hadn't Been Established)
Early Design of the Nostromo's Engineering Passageways (After The Class Dynamics Angle Was Established)
Early Scripted Scene Involving Parker Helping Ripley In The Engine Room
Near Final Design of Ash's Dome Blister
Near Final Design of Ash's Dome Blister
Final Design of The Nostromo's Bulkhead Door
Final Design of The Nostromo's Main Airlock
The Nostromo Semiotic Standards
The Nostromo Patches And Their History (Only Three Made it on Camera, to my Bemusement at the time!)
The Life Boat Mechanisms, Interior Set Design, and ExteriorExtremely Early Design of the Nostromo's (Then Leviathan's) Life Boat Launch Systems, Exterior, and Interior Set Design
Additional Near Final Nostromo Lifeboat Design
Cut Nostromo Vehicle IncarnationsWhat Ridley Called "The Flying Bed Stead", Would Have Been Used By Brett and Parker to Fix Ship EVA
Earlier "Flyer" Design: "Helijet". VTOL Before it Was Cool! 
Another Early "Flyer" Design Later, When it Might Have Been Possible Again. A Detachable Shuttle Called "The Owl". Once the Nostromo Landed, Ridley Thought it Interesting if it Had Another Drop Down Vehicle, But it was Redundant
Prop and Costume DesignJonsey! In All His Over Designed Crate Glory!
Multipurpose "Data Stick". Was (Rightly) Simplified to a Card in the Final Film
Early Design For The Nostromo Crew's Pressure Suit
Polaroids I Took!Nostromo's Auto Dock Set, Viewed From Above (Under Construction)
Nostromo's Auto Dock Scanner (Under construction)
Me in The Medilab Set (Under Construction)
Nostromo's corridors (Under construction)
Nostromo's corridors (Under construction)
Nostromo's corridors (Near completion)
My Good Pal Dan, Intense as Always
Me and Dan, Having a Good Time Coming Up With Great (And Very Dumb) Ideas at Shepperton Studio's
Me and Giger at the King's Head (He Wasn't as Scary as People Gossiped! He was a very sweet guy.)
Full scale build of one of Nostromo's landing legs
Aliens coming next
