Born in Cyprus, but based in England, painter and designer, Chris Achilleos has influenced so many others through magazine covers and films. His controversial covers for Heavy Metal in the 1980s got him noticed worldwide. He also did book covers for Fighting Fantasy and many of the best Sword & Sorcery paperbacks in the UK. As a conceptual artist, Chris designed the famous Taarna character for the movie Heavy Metal (1981), the look of characters such as Madmartigan in Willow (1988), Keira Knightley’s Celtic warrioress in King Arthur (2004) and the sword Excalibur for The Last Legion (2007). Chris Achilleos is known for his beautiful Amazons, creating icons for the 1980s, as Frank Frazetta did in the 1960s and 70s. These images and others have been sold on trading cards. Like Ken Kelly and Frazetta, his artwork has been found on album covers.
Sadly, Chris passed away in December of 2021.
British Book covers
Controversial nipples in this magazine forced the publisher to redesign for North American markets
Fighting Fantasy (1981)
Host of Chaos (1984)
Willow (1988)
King Arthur (2004)
The Last Legion (2007)
Once and Future King Albums by Gary Hughes
I didn’t know he was responsible for these cinematic visuals outside of Heavy Metal. One of the covers below also appears to be the inspiration for the exotic outfit Kate Bush wore in her ’80s music video, Babushka which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xckBwPdo1c