Greg Hildebrandt, influential artist for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Magic: The Gathering, has died

As “the Brothers Hildebrandt”, Greg Hildebrandt and his twin Tim have been legends of fantasy and science-fiction artwork. They turned well-known with their work on the official 1976 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar, on the time the best-selling calendar ever launched, and the nice and cozy gentle of their imaginative and prescient of Center-earth accompanied many subsequent Tolkien calendars and books. That imaginative and prescient influenced different artists, and their depiction of hobbits having extra-large ft—one thing not talked about within the books—turned the default even in Peter Jackson’s motion pictures a long time later.

The Brothers Hildebrandt have been chosen as an instance Star Wars based mostly on the recognition of their calendar work, employed on the final minute to exchange a pre-release poster for the film’s 1977 launch the studio have been sad with. Given solely 36 hours and reference photographs that didn’t embody stills of Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher, they nonetheless managed to create a picture that continues getting used to advertise Star Wars at the moment.

Starting with the Urza’s Future growth in 1999, the Brothers Hildebrandt illustrated over 100 Magic: The Gathering playing cards, both collectively or individually, and lots of of their early Lord of the Rings illustrations have been introduced again for the Tales of Center-earth set. On his personal Greg was chargeable for playing cards like Aether Vial and Tooth and Nail, and new artwork of his was nonetheless showing as lately as Ravnica: Clue Version, launched in February of this 12 months.