Fantasy Visuals: the brothers Hildebrandt

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Hildebrant brothers are special artists, in that their style doesn’t resemble anything seen before or after in Fantasy. It’s immediately recognizable and it carries an obvious level of “Old School-ness”.

Greg and Tim Hildebrant were twins, born in Detroit on 23rd January 1939. Growing up with a passion for Walt Disney, they had the ambition to work for their movies and comics, something which, ironically, never happened although they worked for some of the most important settings of their time. Yet the influence of Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia is easily recognizable in many of their paintings.

Indeed the peculiarity of their style might be linked to the fact that they didn’t attend an Art Academy - instead they the twins started their professional illustrator career in 1959, when they were just 20 years old.

For many years they worked hard with little recognition: if we ignore a concept poster for Young Frankenstein in 1974, their first notable work dates from 1976, and it was the J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings calendar. It proved so popular that they were booked to paint another two issues for 1977 and 1978, and these illustrations remain to this day some of their most popular works.

Gandalf visits Bilbo

An unexpected party

Smaug

The Bridge of Khazad-dum

The Return of Gandalf

The Rangers of Ithilien

City of the Ringwraith

Barad-dûr

The Return of the King

The Last Ship

Soon afterwards, in the wake of the success of the Lord of the Rings, Terry Brooks wrote the series of the Sword of Shannara, and the Hildebrants were contracted for the covers. The first book came out in 1977 and soon it was published with the addition of black and white illustrations. The association of the brothers with the Shannara cycle is, again, one of the highlights of their career.
 

In 1977 the brothers received another once-in-a lifetime commission: to redraw the movie poster for 20th Century Fox’s Star Wars. The original poster by Tom Jung was considered too dark by the company, so for the UK release they planned a new one. The twins had such tight deadlines that they painted the new poster, essentially a derivative of the original, in 36 hours, taking turns with the brush. the poster was used for the launch of the film in UK and displayed for about two months, then being substituted by a third version by Tom Chantrell, based on actual photographs of the actors.

Poster style A by Tom Jung

Poster style B by the brothers Hildebrandt

Poster style C by Tom Chantrell

In the same period Ralph Bakshi was working on his animated film of the Lord of the Rings. The Hildebrandts would have been the ideal candidates, but they were sadly overlooked and this cause a big disappointment. This was, however, the starting point of a new project: ‘if we don’t get commissioned a fantasy movie’ they thought ‘let’s make our own’. This is how Urshurak was born, a project for a fantasy movie in a setting created directly by the brothers. Unfortunately the movie was never made, but in 1979 the twins published their concept work with author Jerry Nichols, as the book “Urshurak”.
 

The disappointment of Urshurak caused the brothers to pursue separate careers. Greg did cover artwork for Omni and Heavy Metal, painted the cover for Black Sabbath’s album “Mob Rules”, and illustrated children editions of classic books.

Nightfire

Mob Rules

Robin and Marion

Geppetto and Pinocchio

The blinding of Polyphaemus

Tim, on the other hand, did covers for sci-fi novels and a calendar for D&D.

 

In 1992, Tim won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist. The following year, the brothers united again to collaborate on work for Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, and numerous book projects, as well as Magic: the Gathering cards and Harry Potter illustrations for Wizards of the Coast.
 

In 1999, Greg Hildebrant started a personal pinup project named "American Beauties".

Tim Hildebrandt died on June 11, 2006 for complication with diabetes. Greg is still active.

The brothers Hildebrant’s technique was oil painting. Their main influence was, as already stated, the art of Walt Disney and most of all the classic movies of the 1940s, '50s and '60s, with their cartoonish characters and exaggerated proportions for Dwarfs and Halflings. But the other main influence on the brothers can't be ignored, and that is obviously Caravaggio: the use of the light come directly from the Renaissance master, and so does the composition and the poses of the characters. Like Disney and unlike Caravaggio, they favoured bright colours and a general mood of positivity and wonder: gloomy or grim scenes are rare in their portfolio.

I have a special liking for their production: it certainly comes from nostalgia, being exposed to their work as an early teenager, but I think they got "Old School" right, the feeling of wonder that should spring from any fantasy setting, and especially those of the '70s and '80s where Good and Evil were opposed forces battling against each other for influence over the world. As Led Zeppelin, wrote, in 1971:

The sky is filled with good and bad
That mortals never know.

Oh, well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow,
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.

[...]
At last the sun is shining, the clouds of blue roll by,
With flames from the dragon of darkness
The sunlight blinds his eyes.