H. R. Giger, a Swiss painter, sculptor and set designer who mined his own nightmares in creating phantasmagorical works, including the title character — slimy, eyeless and oddly sexual — in the 1979 hit film “Alien,” died on Monday in Zurich. He was 74.

Sandra Mivelaz, administrator of the H. R. Giger Museum in Gruyères, Switzerland, said he died of injuries suffered in a fall.

Mr. Giger (pronounced GHEE-ger) was part of the team that won an Academy Award for visual effects in “Alien.” He personally designed the title character through all stages of its life, from egg to eight-foot-tall monster.

A thread running through Mr. Giger’s work was the uneasy meshing of machines and biology, in a highly idiosyncratic blend of science fiction and surrealism. From books to movies to record albums to magazine illustrations to a back-scratcher inspired by “Alien,” his designs challenged norms. He kept a notepad next to his bed so he could sketch the terrors that rocked his uneasy sleep — nightmarish forms that could as easily have lumbered from prehistory as arrived from Mars.