Boris Vallejo Fantasy Heroic

Boris Vallejo: The Pinnacle of Fantasy Illustration Realism

Boris Vallejo (born 1941, Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian-American fantasy illustrator who became one of the most commercially successful and influential painters in the genre through his work on book covers, calendars, posters, and album art from the 1970s through the 1990s. His synthesis of classical figurative painting technique with fantasy subject matter established the visual vocabulary of heroic fantasy illustration for a generation of readers and artists.

Career and Work

Vallejo trained at the National School of Fine Arts in Lima, emigrated to the United States in 1964, and began his commercial illustration career in New York, initially working for Marvel Comics before being recruited to paint covers for Ballantine Books' fantasy paperback line in 1972. His covers for the Tarzan series and, most significantly, for the Conan books (taking over from Frank Frazetta's earlier covers) made him the dominant visual voice of heroic fantasy paperback in the late 1970s and 1980s.

His annual Boris Vallejo calendar, published since 1975, became one of the best-selling poster calendars in American publishing history. He has produced more than 200 book covers and hundreds of other paintings, working in both acrylic and oil.

His wife and frequent collaborator Julie Bell (born 1958) is herself a major fantasy illustrator, and the two have produced collaborative works and joint books including Enchantment (1996) and Super Heroes: The DC Comics Calendar (2004).

Visual Style

Vallejo's style is photorealistic figuration in service of mythological fantasy. His human figures — both male and female — are rendered with hyperbolically developed musculature, idealized anatomy, and the internal light of classical painting: skin glows as if from within, muscles cast micro-shadows, hair catches rim light. He uses models (including himself) and photographs extensively as reference.

The figure types are drawn from classical sculpture (Greek and Roman ideal), Renaissance and Baroque anatomy studies, and the bodybuilding tradition. The settings — prehistoric jungles, alien planets, dungeon floors, stormy clifftops — are painted with the same illusionistic care as the figures.

The overall effect is the sensation of myth made photographically real: heroes and monsters inhabiting the same visual register as a photograph, but with the bodies and situations of ancient legend.

Influence

Vallejo's influence extends to video game concept art (Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo and Warcraft aesthetic owes a clear debt), film poster illustration of the 1980s, tattoo art, and heavy metal album covers. He is the acknowledged successor to Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) as the king of the heroic fantasy genre.