Chris Dellorco (b. 1956)

Chris Dellorco, a Los Angeles, California native, is a fine artist and illustrator known for his extensive print advertising for Disney in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Specializing in Home Video packaging, Chris produced both traditional and digital VHS and DVD cover illustrations, including for The Lion King (1995), A Goofy Movie (Gold Collection, 2000), Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (Platinum Edition, 2001), and Stitch! The Movie (2003).

Chris graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978, but surprisingly with a degree in economics, rather than fine art or illustration. Chris had a nascent talent for art, having done posters for campus events while in school, and desiring a more creative field, Chris switched his focus from academics to art and went on to establish himself as one of the country’s foremost illustrators. Although completely self-taught, by 1980, Chris was represented by Creative Associates in Canyon Country, CA, through which he began doing lettering and logo work for early game packaging, such as Galaxy Invasion and Cosmic Fighter for the TRS-80 from Big Five Software. Between 1980 and 1983, Chris created art for more than a dozen titles from a variety of publishers—all through Creative Associates—illustrating box art for at least six.

In 1993, Chris launched his own design and illustration firm, Dellorco Design, which appears to have coincided with his return to video game art. Shortly after, Chris illustrated the box art for Cool Spot for the Game Boy, Genesis, and Super Nintendo, followed less than a year later by art for Activision’s Radical Rex. In this period, Chris also worked on a few projects for Sega that were ultimately unreleased, such as Baby Boom (Genesis/Game Gear) and B-Bomb (Genesis). Through Dellorco Design, Chris produced scores of advertising illustrations for top rated accounts, including: Disney, Mattel, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kraft Foods, Warner Bros., Milton Bradley, Hasbro, and Scholastic Books.

Notable movie posters Chris illustrated include: Eating Raoul (1982), Conan the Destroyer (1984), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Coming to America (1988), and Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996). In Chris’ own telling, taking jobs with terrible budgets and tight deadlines that no one else wanted provided Chris an opportunity to get his foot in the door, which led to these early movie poster opportunities. He worked with airbrush and acrylic paints.

OVGA has included below Chris Dellorco’s full known video game box art catalog:

1. Crossfire (Sierra On-Line | Home Computers | 1981)
2. Frogger (Sierra On-Line | Home Computers | 1982)
3. WallWar (Sierra On-Line | Atari 8-bit | 1983)
4. The Sands of Egypt (DataSoft, Inc. | Apple II, Atari 8-bit | 1983)
5. Pole Position (Premier Arcades release) (DataSoft, Inc. | Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64 | 1983)
6. Hi-Res Adventure #3: Cranston Manor (SierraVenture re-release) (Sierra On-Line | Apple II, FM-7, PC-88 and PC-98 | 1983)
7. Cool Spot (Virgin Games | Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis, SNES | 1993)
8. Radical Rex (Activision | Genesis/CD, SNES | 1994)
9. Super Solvers: Reading Ages 9-12 (The Learning Company | Macintosh, Windows | 1998)
10. Tonka Search & Rescue 2 (Infogrames Interactive, Inc. | Macintosh, Windows | 2002)

Chris Dellorco's game credits on Mobygames include his lettering, title art, and logo work. Though not listed on Mobygames, Chris also created the logo for Ultima II.