From http://www.crowleystar.net/sports/ci_25751285 :
“BERLIN (AP) — The Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who designed the creature in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic “Alien,” has died at age 74 from injuries suffered in a fall.
Sandra Mivelaz, administrator of the H.R. Giger museum in Gruyeres, western Switzerland, told The Associated Press Tuesday that Giger had died in a hospital the day before.
Born Hans Ruedi Giger in the Swiss town of Chur, he trained as an industrial designer but always had a passion for art.
Giger went on to work as a set designer for Hollywood, most famously “Alien,” for which he received a 1979 Academy Award for special effects.
Giger’s works, often showing macabre scenes of humans and machines fused into hellish hybrids, influenced a generation of movie directors and inspired an enduring fashion for “biomechanical” tattoos.”