Artfantastix
Superhero Covers
Julie's grounding in gymnastics, dance and bodybuilding let her place figures in poses "the viewer knows unconsciously they cannot hold" — the trick, she says, behind comic-book motion.
The Artist
Julie Bell
Power, tenderness and the human form
"I did not have a traditional art-school education. But I had a fantastic one." Julie Bell
Overview
From Beaumont to the front rank of fantasy art
Julie Bell’s work holds power and tenderness in the same gesture. A competitive bodybuilder, she put family life and motherhood before pursuing her ultimate dream of an artistic lifestyle. She taught herself to see the human form as both athlete and artist, then channelled that understanding into comic-book heroines, mythic creatures and, later, some of the most admired wildlife art of her generation.
This page follows that journey in full — from a turbulent childhood across Texas and Georgia, through years of competitive bodybuilding, to the chance meeting at a 1989 contest that changed the course of her life. Where possible the story is told in Julie's own words, drawn from her published biographies, sketchbooks and interviews.
Browse Julie's paintings in the archive →At a glance
| Born | 21 October 1958 · Beaumont, Texas |
|---|---|
| Education | Life-drawing classes from age fifteen · Lamar University, under wildlife painter Jerry Newman · further study under sculptor Wolfram F. Niessen |
| Turned professional | 1991, with a cover for Heavy Metal magazine |
| Known for | Comic-book and superhero covers, fantasy illustration, wildlife art |
| Partners | Donald E. Palumbo married 1978 · Divorced 1987 · two sons, Anthony Palumbo and David Palumbo. Boris Vallejo — met 1989, married 1994, painting partner ever since |
| Studio | Allentown, Pennsylvania |
| Honours | Three Chesley Awards (2009, 2013, 2014 nomination) · Art Renewal Center Salon prizes (2013) · Art Renewal Center Living Master (2023) |
1958 – 1976
A Childhood in Motion
Julie Bell was born in Beaumont, Texas, the second of four siblings. When she was twelve her parents divorced, and her mother — who struggled with alcoholism and a serious mental illness — moved Julie and her sisters to Atlanta, Georgia. The unsettled years that followed saw her attend five different high schools.
It was during this instability that art became a refuge. Teachers recognised her talent; one even gave her "an art office" of her own in a supply closet, where she could sit and paint undisturbed. Asked in the fifth grade what her goal in life was, ten-year-old Julie — unwilling to admit she didn't know — simply announced: "Okay, I'll be an artist." At fifteen she began taking life-drawing classes at Dekalb County Community College, an experience she later described as revelatory.
In elementary school, my teacher asked me what my goal in life was. She refused to hear my excuse that I didn't know, because I was only ten years old. So I said, "Okay, I'll be an artist." Julie Bell, Dreamland
1976 – 1989
Ballet, Gymnastics and the Barbell
At eighteen Julie took her first proper life-drawing class, posing a male ballet dancer as her model. She fell in love with what she calls the most beautiful line in the human form — the one running down from the shoulder — and with the challenge of capturing the human body in two dimensions. That same year she met Donald Palumbo, an English instructor with a passion for science fiction and fantasy; they married in 1978.
Marriage took Julie from Lamar University, where she studied under wildlife painter Jerry Newman, to Michigan, where she had her sons Anthony (1980) and David (1982) and studied under sculptor Wolfram F. Niessen, and on to Ohio and then Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Art study continued between moves, but a career kept receding — even as another passion, rooted in her childhood ballet and gymnastics training, took its place: bodybuilding. Julie competed at a national level for five years, before concerns about the sport's reliance on steroids led her to retire from competition in 1989.
1989
Meeting Boris
Julie's final bodybuilding competition, in New Jersey, became the turning point of her artistic life.
A contest promoter showed Boris Vallejo photographs of Julie and suggested she model for one of his fantasy paintings. The two began talking about art during the sessions that followed, and Boris — recognising a serious artist rather than just a model — started sharing everything he knew.
The first time I watched Boris paint, what was most remarkable to me was how he used color… I felt like our minds were so perfectly in tune that what he taught me transferred directly to my brain. He gave me courage and showed me how to bring my skills to a polished level. Within a year, I had my paintings on the cover of Heavy Metal magazine. Julie Bell, Dreamland
The couple married in 1994 and have worked side by side ever since, often receiving commissions to create paintings collaboratively. Their styles are so similar that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between their individual contributions.
It was a turning point for me. I saw Julie as the ideal of female beauty. She changed my whole interpretation of the female, and made it the emphasis of my work ever since. Boris Vallejo, on meeting Julie, Fabulous Fantasy Women
1991 onward
Turning Professional
Julie's professional debut came almost on speculation — and led quickly to one of fantasy art's most recognisable techniques.
In 1991 Julie took some paintings speculatively to Heavy Metal magazine, where they were greeted with enthusiasm. Two early experiments in painting gleaming, polished metal over the human figure — what she calls "metal flesh" — proved so popular with a publisher that they suggested a whole series, and a signature style was born: instead of hard steel contrasting with soft flesh, the flesh itself becomes steel, the vulnerability of skin taking on the power of polished metal.
Commissions followed quickly: superhero trading cards for Marvel and DC, covers for Heavy Metal and Penthouse Comix, and portraits of established characters from The Silver Surfer to Lois Lane. Within a few years of picking up a professional brush for the first time, Julie Bell had become one of the busiest artists in the genre.
I think I've always been really strong inside, but for the first thirty years of my life I often let people walk all over me… Then I realized I am a really strong person. When you find your power you have to learn to be responsible with it. Julie Bell, Hard Curves
1990s onward
Comics, Superheroes and Fantasy Worlds
Julie's grounding in bodybuilding and dance gave her superhero work a sense of motion rarely seen on the printed page.
Through Wolf's Eyes
This 2000 book jacket, and the trip to a wolf preserve it inspired, reignited Julie's lifelong love of nature and pointed her toward wildlife art.
Fantasy & Creature Art
Beasts, dragons and mythic companions recur throughout Julie's book-jacket work, always painted with the same attention to anatomy she brings to the human figure.
It is interesting, a contrast between my work and Julie's. I am mostly concerned with painting the female form, while for Julie, the character's costume is often of equal importance to the figure. Boris Vallejo, Fabulous Fantasy Women
2000s onward
Wildlife Art and Nature's Majesty
Commissioned to illustrate the jacket for Jane Lindskold's Through Wolf's Eyes, Julie and Boris travelled to the Lakota Wolf Preserve in New Jersey to observe and sketch wolves from life. The trip reignited a love of the natural world that had been with her since childhood, and wildlife art became a second, parallel career — one built on the same rigorous anatomy and behaviour study she had always brought to fantasy figures.
Her wildlife pieces aim not just to record an animal's physical form but its spirit and place within a natural balance, a sensibility that has since been recognised by the Art Renewal Center, which named her a Living Master in 2023.
Recognition
Awards and Legacy
From a first speculative sale to Heavy Metal magazine to recognition among the finest realist and imaginative artists working today, Julie Bell's career has been built one honest brushstroke at a time.
2009
Chesley Award
Winner, Artistic Achievement — plus a nomination for Best Color Work.
2013
Chesley Award
Winner, Best Color Work.
2013
Art Renewal Center Salon
First Place, Imaginative Realist category · Third Place, Animal category · Runner-up, Best Portrait.
2014
Chesley Award
Nomination, Best Product Illustration.
2023
Art Renewal Center
Named a Living Master, recognising a lifetime of realist and imaginative work.
Ongoing
A Feminist Statement
"I give them strength and dignity as well as retaining their sexy look," Julie has said of her heroines — women who are, in her words, always in control of their own circumstances.
Today
Still Painting, Together
More than three decades after that first modelling session, Julie Bell continues to paint alongside Boris Vallejo in their Allentown studio — still finding new subjects, from fantasy, wildlife to abstract art, and in her own words, treating every day as a search for beauty.