H.R. Giger, famed creator of the design for Ridley Scott’s influential Alien sci-fi horror franchise, died Monday after suffering injuries in a fall, his museum said Tuesday.  He was 74.
 
The iconic Xenomorph alien design originated from one of the Swiss surrealist painter and sculptor’s own lithographs, titled Necronom IV.  The designs he produced for the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien netted him an Oscar as part of the team award for Best Visual Effects.  He went on to contribute designs to Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection and Prometheus; as well as conceptual work on Species, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and Tokyo: The Last War.  He came to Scott’s attention in the 1970s from work he did on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s version of Dune, which was later directed by David Lynch.
 
He also designed work that appeared on album covers including the Brain Salad Surgery cover for Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Koo Koo for Debbie Harry.  He also directed a number of films in the 1960s and 70s: Swiss Made, Tagtraum, Giger's Necronomicon, and Giger's Alien.  Two video games based on his artwork, Dark Seed and Dark Seed II, were published by Cyberdreams in the 1990s.  He purchased a medieval castle in Gruyeres, Switzerland, and opened his own museum there in 1998.
 
Hans Ruedi Giger’s work often focused on dark, atmospheric, pseudo-sexual human and machine hybrids, and his biomechanical style has influenced a generation of sci-fi and horror artists.  He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013.