Achilles’ Choice Paperback Cover 1991

Here's Boris Vallejo’s paperback cover for Achilles’ Choice. You can tell it’s oil paint from the way the figures are emerging from the ground with soft edges. The cool blue background highlights the sharp features of the women and the spaceship. I wonder what the studio smells like when he's making it. Probably turpentine! What was Vallejo thinking when he painted the muscles on these women? As a painter, I imagine him being really interested in the shapes of the body; it reminds me of how Picasso would break up the body into shapes and angles to create more interesting planes. Maybe Vallejo was thinking of those earlier painters as he worked. The women look strong and confident, like figures from a dream or a myth. The way he’s painted their bodies is almost an exaggeration but that’s what makes this painting so energetic! I feel a connection between his figures and the female figures of Niki de Saint Phalle who also had a way of exaggerating the female form. Painting is a conversation!