Tim Hildebrandt

Greg and Tim Hildebrandt began painting professionally in 1959. Their work was heavily influenced by illustration style of Disney animated feature films and illustrators such as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish. The brothers rose to prominence with their illustrations for a series of Lord of the Rings calendar, for Marvel Comics and DC Comics, and for fantasy books such as Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara.

In 1977 the brothers were approached by 20th Century Fox to produce poster art for the British release of Star Wars. A promotional poster had already been produced in US by the artist Tom Jung, but Fox executives considered this poster "too dark". The twins had to work to a very tight deadline, and worked together in shifts to produce a finished product in 36 hours. Their version of the poster, referred to as Style B, was distributed to be used on British cinema billboards for the UK release, and became possibly their best known work. Using the same layout as Jung's Style A poster, it depicts Luke Skywalker standing in a heroic pose brandishing a shining lightsaber above his head, with Princess Leia standing below him, and a large, ghostly image of Darth Vader's helmet looming behind them. The central figures are surrounded by smaller depictions of other characters and a montage of starfighters in combat amid a sea of stars. Both Jung and the Hildebrandts had worked on their posters without reference to photographs of the actual cast, and Fox and Lucasfilm subsequently decided that they wanted to promote the new film with a less stylised and more realistic depiction of the lead characters. Producer Gary Kurtz commissioned the film poster artist Tom Chantrell to paint a new version from film stills and publicity photos. Star Wars opened in British theatres on 28 November 1977, and the Hildebrandts' poster was displayed in UK cinemas for about two months before it was replaced by Chantrell's Style C poster.

Tim Hildebrandt also completed many images for the Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire multimedia project.

• The Star Wars Album
• The Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
• Star Wars: The Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt