Taken from the BBC news website

'Alien designer HR Giger dies at 74

The Swiss artist and designer of Ridley Scott's Alien, H. R. Giger, has died aged 74, a spokesperson at Giger's museum in Gruyere has confirmed.

He died of injuries sustained after he fell down stairs at his Zurich home.

Born in 1940, Giger was best known for his 'Xenomorph' alien in Scott's sci-fi horror masterpiece for which he won a visual effects Oscar in 1980.

He studied architecture and industrial design in Zurich and was known for creating strange dreamscapes.

Meticulously detailed, Giger's surrealist paintings were usually produced in large formats and then reworked with an airbrush and usually feature scenes of humans and machines fused together.

Giger described his style as "biomechanical".

One of his pieces in particular - Necronom IV - inspired the titular alien killer in Sir Ridley's hit film.

He also worked on Aliens 3 (1992) and, more recently, appeared in a documentary about director Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade film of the book Dune.

In 1998, he opened his own museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland, which alongside his own paintings and sculptures, displays works from his own art collection from the likes of Salvador Dali, Dada and Ernst Fuchs.

The museum is run by the artist's wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger.

In December 2004, Giger received the prestigious award, La Medaille de la Ville de Paris, at Paris City Hall.

Last year, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in Seattle, along with fellow inductees, David Bowie and JRR Tolkien.

His work has also been exhibited around the world, including recent retrospectives in Hamburg, Germany, Moscow and Istanbul.'

He will be sadly missed

When Alien was first shown on TV . my father had recorded it on VHS. So I would attempt to watch it many many times alone , but alas I would fail miserably. In fact to the point where I actually watched Aliens first a few years later at a friends house. Alien the atmosphere and all the darkness really scared me to death. The only other film that did that prior was Jaws. Aliens became my instant favourite movie thus I did eventually force myself to watch Alien. I also had an artwork book of HR GIger and a Salvador Dahli book as a student. He will be sorely missed and his work had a huge impact in the sci-fi field.

R.I.P. see you on the other side.

Cheers,

BadOrb.