Biography-a-minute:
Boris Vallejo: I will draw hot chicks and dragons.
Fantasy Geeks: We love you Boris!
Boris Vallejo: I am now rich.
The End
Boris Vallejo was born 1941 in Lima, Peru. At an early age, he started taking violin-lessons, but did not pursue this career further. Instead, he enrolled at a medical school. Soon his friends realized that his talents were elsewhere, and encouraged him to study art. Boris got a scholarship to the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes ("National School of Fine Arts") and studied there for five years.
After his studies and a short period of work for the McCann Erickson advertising bureau, Boris moved to America in 1964 to try his luck. It didn't take long before he was working at another advertising agency in New York, America. After two years, Boris had made enough capital to be able to work free-lance.
As a free-lancer, Boris took all the crappy jobs he could get his hands on, to get the experience needed. He worked on christmas cards, technical illustrations, and all other kinds of commercial work. This wasn't very fulfilling, though, and one day Boris bought some oil-paints and scene from Greek mythology.
"I have always had a special love for the perfect structure of the human body, and fantasy art enabled me to depict muscular and sensuous bodies in all variations in my works. And as I love human bodies, I always try to paint them as beautiful and as perfect as possible."
Boris managed to sell the painting to Warren Publications, and it was soon featured on the cover of Eerie Comics. After this, he started concentrating on Fantasy art, making enough material in a few years to release a collection. Boris has made several covers for Dungeons and Dragons and other roleplaying books. At this time, Boris also worked on comicbooks, including Conan the Barbarian for Marvel.
If you've ever seen a painting by Boris, you'll probably be able to recognize his style or influence in many fantasy paintings. He himself was inspired by the likes of Frank Frazetta, one of the artists working on Conan. If you like this style of vim, you might also want to check out the works of Richard Corben and Richard Kane Ferguson.
Bibliography:
- The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo (Ballantine, 1978)
- Calendars (Released each year since 1981 by Workman Publications)
- Collected Works (unknown, 1998)
- Hindsight: Photographic Art of Boris Vallejo (Collins & Brown, 1998)
- Dreams: The Art of Boris Vallejo (anthology) (Thunder, 1999)
Graphography: (covers, etc)
- The Dragon and the George (Nelson Doubleday/Book Club, unknown)
- The Flying Sorcerers (Ballantine Del Rey, 1971)
- The Flight of the Horse (Ballantine, 1973)
- Pluribus (Ace, 1975)
- A Hostage for Hinterland (Ballantine Books, 1976)
- Davy (Ballantine, 1976)
- Gateway (St. Martin, 1977)
- My Lord Barbarian (Ballantine Del Rey, 1977)
- The Best of Leigh Brackett (Doubleday, 1977)
- The Broken Sword (Ballantine Del Rey, 1977)
- The Flying Sorcerers (Ballantine Del Rey, 1977)
- The Lavalite World (Ace, 1977)
- The Maker of Universes (Ace, 1977)
- Berserker (Ace, 1978)
- Earth Magic (Ace, 1978)
- Spawn of the Winds (Jove/HBJ, 1978)
- The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo (Ballantine Del Rey, 1978)
- The Magic Goes Away (Ace, 1978)
- The Magic Goes Away (Ace, 1978)
- Some Summer Lands (Pocket, 1979)
- The City (Pocket, 1979)
- The Dragon (Pocket, 1979)
- Berserker's Planet (Ace, 1980)
- Two Hawks from Earth (Ace, 1980)
- A Private Cosmos (Ace, 1981)
- Behind the Walls of Terra (Ace, 1981)
- The Gates of Creation (Ace, 1981)
- The Ring of Ikribu (Ace, 1981)
- Agent of Vega (Ace, 1982)
- Demon Night (Ace, 1982)
- Endithor's Daughter (Ace, 1982)
- The Gates of Creation (Ace, 1982)
- The Lavalite World (Ace, 1982)
- The Maker of Universes (Ace, 1982)
- When Hell Laughs (Ace, 1982)
- A Matter for Men (Pocket, 1983)
- Against the Prince of Hell (Ace, 1983)
- Star of Doom (Ace, 1983)
- More Magic (Berkley, 1984)
- Berserker Man (Berkley, 1985)
- Berserker: Blue Death (unknown, 1985)
- Dwellers in the Crucible (Pocket, 1985)
- Ishmael (Pocket, 1985)
- Killing Time (Pocket, 1985)
- Privateers (unknown, 1985)
- Star Trek #12: Mutiny on the Enterprise (Gregg, 1985)
- Star Trek #16: The Final Reflection (Gregg, 1985)
- Star Trek: The Shadow Lord (Pocket, 1985)
- Warrior Witch of Hel (Questar, 1985)
- Crisis on Centaurus (Pocket, 1986)
- Dreadnought! (Pocket, 1986)
- Mindshadow (Pocket, 1986)
- Star Trek # 8: Black Fire (Gregg, 1986)
- Star Trek # 9: Triangle (Gregg, 1986)
- Voyagers II: The Alien Within (unknown, 1986)
- Berserker: Blue Death (unknown, 1987)
- The Final Planet (Warner, 1987)
- To Sail Beyond the Sunset (Ace/Putnam, 1987)
- Araminta Station (unknown, 1988)
- Prelude to Foundation (Doubleday Foundation, 1988)
- To Sail Beyond the Sunset (Ace, 1988)
- Vengeance of Orion (unknown, 1988)
- Cyberbooks (unknown, 1989)
- Starbridge (Ace, 1989)
- TekWar (Ace/Putnam, 1989)
- The Dragon Knight (unknown, 1990)
- The Ring of Charon (unknown, 1990)
- Achilles' Choice (unknown, 1991)
- Conan the Magnificent (unknown, 1991)
- Conan the Triumphant (unknown, 1991)
- Conan the Victorious (unknown, 1991)
- TekLords (Ace/Putnam, 1991)
- A Fire Upon the Deep (unknown, 1993)
- Dragon Rigger (unknown, 1993)
- Mercenary's Star (Roc UK, 1993)
- More Than Fire (unknown, 1993)
- Tek Secret (Ace/Putnam, 1993)
- Tek Vengeance (Ace, 1993)
- The Price of Glory (Penguin/Roc, 1993)
- Dragon Rigger (unknown, 1994)
- Orion and the Conqueror (unknown, 1994)
- Tek Power (Ace/Putnam, 1994)
- Berserker Kill (unknown, 1995)
- Orion and the Conqueror (unknown, 1995)
- Tek Power (Ace, 1995)
- The Shattered Sphere (unknown, 1995)
- The Dragon and the Gnarly King (unknown, 1997)
- Etruscans (unknown, 1999)
- Realms of Fantasy, February 1999 (unknown, 1999)
- Realms of Fantasy, October 1999 (unknown, 1999)
- Realms of Fantasy, April 2000 (unknown, 2000)
- The Best of Omni Science Fiction, No. 4 (Omni, 1982)
Sources: SFAE.com, Google, them.ws/bioamin/, sfdb.com + a homecooked perlscript for parsing, Biography at "hem.passagen.se/h2/vallejo/"