Remembering Greg Hildebrandt

At the end of last year, the world of illustration lost a legend with the passing of Greg Hildebrandt.

Greg – along with his brother Tim who passed away in 2006 – dazzled fantasy fans with their Lord of the Rings calendar work in the 1970s. The hallmarks of the Hildebrandt style are mural-like compositions with exquisitely choreographed characters and brilliant, luminous colors. Their work glows! The use of bold rim-lighting (I’ve heard it called “shock lighting”) often framed the shadowed side of figures and made them POP! This approach is something I’ve tried to adopt in my own digital paintings.

While many know the Hildebrandts for their Tolkien work, many more likely know them from their 1977 Star Wars poster art…

My love of their work made them the first creators I reached out to when self-publishing my sci-fi comics in the late ‘90s. I was able to hire them to produce a cover for my Astounding Space Thrills series.

He and his brother were a treat to work with and I absolutely adore their cover.

I only got to meet Greg very briefly at a Baltimore Comic-Con a few years ago. He was a bright, generous man and as luminous as one of his paintings.

Thank you Greg for your lifetime of amazing and inspiring art.

His art is available for sale at SpiderWebArt.