Sci-Fi Art from Melvyn Grant, another British Sci-Fi and fantasy Artist who’s career span’s back to the Seventies. Since that period Grant’s produced many Sci-fi and Fantasy’s Illustrations, successfully making the transition from traditional to digital media, and also holds the honourable accolade of Illustrating Iron Maiden infamous “Eddie” character on not one but two of their Album sleeves.
Read a little more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvyn_Grant Artist’s home page: http://www.melgrant.com/
Scan Taken from Paper Tigers 1977 release“The Flights of Icarus”.
** Addendum 28th Oct 2009
Mel’s supplied the following info on the piece itself:
This piece was an oil painting on 20×30in (51×76cm) canvas board (it extended higher to allow for the type). It was originally commissioned as the cover for ‘Space Vikings’ by H Beam Piper, published by Sphere Books London.
Really cool, I have a very poor (small / b&w) repro of this image in an SF encyclopedia, great to see it in colour!
Comment by Jeff — October 29, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
Hey Jeff, I’m sure a Cropped version of this was used as Box Art for an Amiga Game….
Comment by admin — October 29, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
Finally I found it! This image is one of my earliest SF memories. I can’t remember if I saw it in a book or somewhere else but somewhere in my brain childhood memories come to life when I see this. Was it possibly part of some sort of SF collectible trade card series back in the 70’s early 80’s? I have vivid memories of this, the striking colour, the horn like helmets, the dust.
For me, this was THE SF image, and still is. I had no idea who made it, until now. Thanks for posting!
Comment by Robert — July 29, 2009 @ 1:04 am
Hi Robert..
Thanks for posting! glad you’ve been able to find something you’ve been looking for!! sounds like you’ve got some memories of the illustration
This was scanned from Tiger Press’s “The Flight of Icarus” a Sci-Fi/Fantasy compendium from 1977 – I’ve also seen this design on a SF novel from aroung the same time…. And as i’ve mentioned I’ve also scene it on Game Box art… this sort of stuff tended to the rounds, and rightly so!
Comment by Kie — July 29, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Hi,
Great site. Thanks for a good presentation of my artwork. This piece was an oil painting on 20×30in (51×76cm) canvas board (it extended higher to allow for the type). It was originally commissioned as the cover for ‘Space Vikings’ by H Beam Piper, published by Sphere Books London.
Comment by Mel Grant — October 27, 2009 @ 11:27 am
Hi Mel,
cheers for the comment! not a problem on featuring the piece you’ve done some fantastic work…. I just realised your not in the “Hall of Fame” down the side of the blog… I’ll fix that now
cheers!
Comment by Kie — October 28, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
The game that was an old Amiga/ST release with the godawful title “Captain Fizz meets the Blaster-trons” (genuine WTF!?) published by Psygnosis…
Only bizarrely it was a remake of an old BBC Micro game originally called… “Icarus” which had completely different, unrelated artwork.
Wierd.
Comment by Matt — December 23, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
Hey Matt,
I do remember the image from an Ad in Amiga format or something… but don’t remember that title, or the ‘Icarus’ original….. I do remember ‘Blasteroids’ but that was entirely different an Atari Coin-Op….
Comment by Kie — December 29, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
I have the Paper Tigers “The Flights of Icarus” which also contains other lovely Melvynt art
I believe I first have seen this particular piece on the cover of Amiga game box back in the days 
A wonderful work!
Comment by Eon Works — February 16, 2010 @ 2:25 pm