One of the most iconic fantasy and sci-fi artists of all time, Greg Hildebrandt, has sadly passed away at age 85. We learned the news via the folks at Gizmodo. Together with his twin brother Tim, the prolific artist drew illustrations for the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, Marvel and DC Comics, and a number of iconic movie posters. But he is perhaps most famous for the poster he did way back in 1977, for the original Star Wars. Although A New Hope had many posters, Fox licensed this one for merchandise all over the world. It eventually became synonymous with the film.
Back in 1977, Michigan-born artists Greg and Tim Hildebrandt were approached by 20th Century Fox to produce poster art for the UK release of Star Wars. The studio had already produced a poster in the US by artist Tom Jung, but Fox executives considered this poster artwork “too dark.” So with only 36 hours, brothers Greg and Tim had to produce a new image to promote the film. The poster art they came up with took great liberties with the actor’s appearances. Luke Skywalker had an open shirt revealing a buff physique, while Princess Leia posed in a provocative way. Neither version really resembled the actors, yet this image wound up on everything from bedsheets to t-shirts.
The brothers Hildebrandt did many illustrations together for decades. In the fantasy realm, they did a series of Lord of the Rings calendars and posters in the ’70s. They followed those up with Illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Harry Potter. They also illustrated a popular series of Marvel Masterworks trading cards in the ’90s. In later years, after his brother passed away in 2006, Greg did a series of Star Trek covers for IDW. And all that is just the tip of the iceberg. This means there are very few major sci-fi and fantasy properties he didn’t contribute to artistically in his lifetime. Greg Hildebrandt left an indelible mark on how we view heroic fantasy characters for all time.