Truly a sad day for me.

A quote from thisisbrandx.com

Frank Frazetta, the great painter of fantasy book covers, has died. The artist, most closely associated with Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian” character, was the subject of the 2003 documentary “Frazetta: Painting With Fire.” After a series of strokes, Frazetta trained himself to paint using his left hand. His signature work often featured bare-chested “sword and sorcery” heroes, helpless women and fantasy creatures. His paintings often sell in the million-dollar range. Frazetta was 82.

–Richard Metzger

The height of his career was during the 60s, 70s and 80s where he painted movie posters for Tarzan, Conan and even resulted in the movie Fire and Ice.

Below is the trailer for the Painting with Fire movie where most of his paintings featured went for over a million dollars in art auctions.

His work is currently displayed in a museum in Pennsylvania.

Here are a few of his masterpieces..

I first came across his work when I was 13 years old. I attended a trade school in the Philippines where I was exposed to watercolor techniques. I sucked at watercolor but it was part of the course so I had no choice. Our teacher handed us a book with pages after pages of Frank Frazetta’s masterpieces. While we picked up our jaw from the ground looking at this book, she then told us to pick one and recreate it as part of our assignment. I wanted to cry because I was so intimidated. The original painting was done with oils I believed and to recreate it using watercolor was probably the impossible task I ever had at that time, especially considering that I was only 13 and hated watercolor paintings.

But there was something about Frank’s work that was so inspiring as I separated every single brush strokes. Most of my classmates already had picked what they wanted to do and I ended up choosing this piece below.

We had a short time to finish it so I just sucked it up and did it. I think I got an equivalent of an A- by the time it was all said and done. I never got that piece back though. Last I heard it was all piled up and they were ready to just throw it away.

Even though we moved on to other projects, I still can’t stop looking through that Frazetta book. It was amazing. I wished all my life that I can draw and paint like him.

His influence was so deep that people who I looked up to when I got into comics were all influenced by this master. Artist like Simon Bisley, Boris Vallejo, Frank Miller, and many others admired him. There were even a few statues made from his paintings as well as people getting inked up featuring one of Frank’s lush paintings. Even the movie 300 looked cool to me coz they looked like Frazetta’s paintings.

I was so impressed by this man’s work that I even fashioned my signature to his back when I started in the comic book industry.

This is Frank Frazetta’s signature..

And how I signed my earlier comic book work..

Frank Frazetta’s self portrait.

To Frank. No doubt that if there was one person you influenced and inspired with your body of work, it was that 13 year old filipino kid who believed he can be as good as you. I’m still working on it and hopefully someday, I can come close. Rest in Piece sir.

My sincere condolences to his friends and family.