I've never seen or heard of Chris Achilleos until a few days ago, and I'm surprised That i haven't. I stumbled across an art book of his (Sirens to be precise) at a nearby Barnes & Noble five days ago. The funny thing about This particular B&N is that they throw the fantasy art books in the Fantasy literature section, as opposed to the art book section, which is beyond me. regardless, I found it while looking for Boris Vallejo books for a good laugh. When i opened it, i was shocked to see what I saw. His work is definitely up there. Most fantasy artists have pieces with epic battles, dragons, men armed with a sword (sometimes half-naked), scantly-clad fantasy babes, and Dragons. And they're all usually for Young Adult novellas or pin-ups for comic nerds. He's no exception, but his work definitely is better than most. This post will be based on his "single dude with a weapon, possibly fighting hordes of brutes" type images.
This image made me a fan of his for numerous reasons:
1) The Quality of The Art- It has texture and that means alot to me. Most fantasy artist ruin their work by making it as shiny and glossy looking as possible (like Boris Vallejo) thus making the image annoying to look at. It has a certain roughness to it where I believe this guy is lost on the ice somewhere. You can also tell that he did a detailed drawing and just filled it in with paint, keeping the "black line" semi-intact. That's considered a "no-no" by some professionals. I think it works for what he does. I'm under the impression that Chris Achielleos probably spent a good chunk of his time in high-school drawing "Eddie" of Iron Maiden in the back of his math notebook, then when to art school for a few years** (this is more apparent in the other images I put up later in this post.) This certainly adds to the rawness of his figures. I'm also going to throw out there that this piece (and all of his other works) have that look where you can tell he was hired to make this for a publisher, unlike Frank Frazetta who is a Painter as opposed to an Illustrator that paints. Not that its bad, I find his "chunky" anatomy functional and better than people who have spent more time on the ideal anatomical form who've forgotten to add imagination (again, this is more obvious in the later images). His art would be at home on a Magic card or on any respectable metal band's record jacket (he did; unfortunately; do one for Whitesnake , but that's a later post). Then again, his work is a step above any artist who works in those spectrums. The one thing that doesn't work in his favor is that his characters come off as posing, as opposed to being in motion. Then again, most people aren't successful at that.
2) The Imagery- When I saw this, I was interested in knowing what this guy's deal is. Like, where is he going, why is he leaving that castle, who's is that old guy he's thinking of/being haunted by, etc. In my opinion, a Fantasy Artist has succeeded in making a good fantasy image if it comes off as a glimpse of this larger, fantastic world that i believe exists somewhere in my imagination. Which leads me to my last reason...
3) The Characters/Environment- The outfit this guy is wearing is awesome. Bits of 15th Century armor clad with functional leather garments that are semi-historically accurate, trudging through a icy landscape, chained for whatever reason. I can tell this guy is from somewhere, and he just escaped from the castle int he distance, in attempt to return to where he is from. He's just one in many people that fill this other world that is filled with fantastic landscapes and amazing architecture. Chris Achilleos does a great job at blending European-style armor, clothing, architecture, etc. in a more fantastic setting. Or pushing them from realistic to plausibly realistic. His work has a sense of function to it. Most of today's fantasy art is either plagued by trying to have that jagged, WETA fantasy vibe from LOTR or bad Manga-style quality to it. Whatever happened to having a Classic Medieval look?
Here's a collection of "Men-At-Arms" hero type images, to get an idea where I'm coming from-
*note- The first image at the beginning of this post is his illustration of a Nazgul from Lord Of The Rings. I think that character design schools the cloaked robed wraiths of the trilogy films by Peter Jackson. That Nazgul looks like a warrior decked out in various exotic garb from his travels haunting Middle-earth. Awesome.
** He was already a professional artist by the late 1970s, but he has that attitude in his work.
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