What box art did Boris Vallejo do?
Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell do a lot of fantasy art. How can I put this? The look certainly is distinctive, but I find it rather hard to stomach in even moderately large doses.
I have seen a few references that suggest Mr. Vallejo did quite a bit of video game box art back in the day. Has anyone ever compiled a complete list of his work in this area?
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Been searching, but have yet to turn anything up as far as a complete list. From memory, I can tell you that Vallejo did the covers of Golden Axe II and Ecco the Dolphin (the U.S. releases, not too sure about the Japanese MD releases). Julie Bell did the covers of Demon's Crest (U.S. release) and Splatterhouse 3 - oddly, her artwork showed up on the Mega Drive SH3 too. I guess Namco liked her SH3 artwork enough that they used it for that version.
Most of the early Ballistic/Accolade Genesis games have Vallejo art.
all the early accolade stuff for genesis if am right..
hardball,turrican,and ballstic
and i think they did some other sega box art as well..
golden ax 2
and i want say the old swords and serpents game too but am not for sure about that one so am most like wrong about that one.
A search on Mobygames turns up
Demise - Rise of the Ku'tan (2000), Artifact Entertainment
Shannara (1995), Legend Entertainment Company
Eric the Unready (1993), Legend Entertainment Company
Dragon Wars (1989), Interplay Entertainment Corp.
All of these are PC games, of course.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
He (Vallejo) also made the cover for a NES game... I know about it, but I can't recall the name of it.
I do know he didn't get paid for it, and that it was an Acclaim title. Probably one of the Wizards and Warriors games.
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Ironsword, which was a port of a Conan game on microcomputer.
He did the covers for Golden Axe (Japanese Mega Drive) and Phantasy Star IV (US/Euro) as well (judging by the style of the cover).
Melf has an interview with him up at sega-16.com for the interested. Haha, I see that the two pieces I mentioned were covered specifically (there's a partial scan of the Golden Axe cover).
Wow, that was just last week. What a coincidence! Not much verbosity in his responses, though.
It looks like he might have also done Gauntlet IV and Alisia Dragoon.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Yeah, Boris doesn't seem to be a really talkative fellow. Talented as hell though.
I know that on the Genesis, he did the foilowing:
- Ecco the Dolphin
- Ecco the Tides of Time
- Golden Axe 2
- Phantasy Star IV
- Turrican
- Hardball
- Star Control
- Onslaught
He also did the Dreamcast Ecco cover, and Julie Bell did the cover for Eternal Champions on the Genesis.
Hmm, I don't have a Genesis copy of Golden Axe (I). Just a loose PAL cart and the Japanese game. Does the artwork wrap around to the back on the Genesis like it does on the Japanese version?
Pictures of that one here:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/533/533968p9.html
I think that was the first reference I saw to Vallejo, actually. No firm answers though.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
legendary wings also i believe.
Oh wait Im thinking of a Genesis game with a guy with wings on the cover.... wings of wor?
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I saw this covers art by Boris Vallejo
- Golden Axe II ( American Genesis cover )
- Ecco the Dolphin ( American Genesis cover )
- Hardball ( Accolade / Ballistic games )
the dude is just a wannabe frazetta anyway
Really? I hadn't heard that. What game/computer, do you know?
Isn't Kuros on the IronSword cover actually romance novel mainstay and "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" man-whore Fabio? That's what I'd always heard, and it sure looks like him...
Maybe swords and serpents is one of his works as well.
I met Boris Vallejo in 1994, but there wasn't any time to say much. Got some autographs, though.
Oh, and Julie Bell did the US box art to Valis IV. You can buy a fabulously overpriced (for the size) print of that painting at their website.
An interesting note about Boris and Julie- Boris' wife was Doris Vallejo, (She was a model in a lot of his paintings in the 70s) and some time in the 80s or 90s he met Julie Bell, who was also a bodybuilder and fantasy artist. Julie modeled for Boris many times, he liked her alot and naturaly started banging her behind his wife's back. When she found out, she divorced him and took a hell of alot of his money with her. So after that Boris and Julie got married, and their painting styles grew identical. But they're both far inferior to the master, Frank Frazetta!
Word. I don't really care for the way they paint machinery and such. Naked women, yeah. Robots and cyborgs. Gimme a break.But they're both far inferior to the master, Frank Frazetta!
I think their machiney painting is pretty good, as far as painted machinery goes. (I prefer the Japanese comic style) And I do like many of Boris' older works, but what I don't like about him in general is that everything is too static; a painting of a guy swinging a sword, with some dame behind him looking afraid, looks just like a painting of a model standing there, holding a sword, posing like he's about to swing it, and the girl looks like a model sitting there going "Look afraid? Like this?" They just look too much like posing models.
Frazetta on the other hand, doesn't use models and paints everything entirely out of his head. When Frank draws a guy swinging a sword, he rears back and the guy he's attacking is about to get owned for free + shipping. Raw dynamics, you know.
But did this Frazetta ever do video game box art?
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
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