Kilian Eng (1982)

Kilian Eng AKA DW Design was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1982 where he still lives and works. In 2010 Kilian Eng graduated from Konstfack, University of Arts Craft & Design in Stockholm from the master group in storytelling, graphic design & Illustration. A couple of years ago Kilian discovered the possibilities of working in a digital way with illustration. Without losing respect for the powers of pen and paper Kilian started to investigate this new medium. The computer proved to be the perfect tool and gave exactly the kind of workflow he was looking for. 

Today Kilian Eng AKA DW Design is working digitally with almost every visual project making illustrations rich in colour and often with a lot of environment presented. In recent years he has also started to work with animation for telling stories. Since he often thinks in terms of a longer sequence when illustrating the many possibilities with moving image connected to storytelling has proven to be a great addition.

A big interest in Kilians work is to create alternative worlds, they can become visible just by opening a kitchen drawer or listening to the sound of cars on the street. Imagination can take over everywhere and be the starting point to create something unexpected. Much Inspiration comes from the interest in both classic and futuristic architecture, surrealism, science fiction, theater scenography, different elements and shapes in the nature as well as in the urban landscape.

Some Kilian clients include: Miami Horror, Frite Nite, Tesla Boy, Digital Arts, Acclaim Magazine, Acne Production, Playboy US, Eight Magazine, Kulturskolan Södertälje, Tokyo Dawn, The Sound Of Arrows and Lazer Sword.

Rolando Cyril "AquaSixio" (1984)

Rolando Cyril Aka "AquaSixio" was born in France in 1984. He is a curious of life and admire the work of the time, the evolution of societies, the change of thoughts, the human revolutions….how drops after drops are born oceans. He choose the pseudo Aquasixio to put together his favorite element with his favorite digit. His characters are often lost children in quest for their truth (and not THE truth). Their stories are quite sad but the darkness of life is more inspiring than happy and safe people.

Donato Giancola (1967)

Donato Giancola was born in Colchester, Vermont, USA in 1967. Since beginning his professional career in 1993, Donato's list of clients has grown to include major book publishers and collectors in New York to concept design firms on the West Coast: notables include The United Nations, LucasFilm, National Geographic, CNN, DC Comics, Microsoft, The Village Voice, Playboy Magazine, US Postal Service, Wizards of the Coast , Scholastic, Simon&Schuster, Tor Books, Random House, Time/Warner, The Scifi Channel, Milton-Bradley, and Hasbro. Merits range from the prestigious Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators to nineteen Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, three Artist Hugo Awards for outstanding professional work from the World Science Fiction Society, notable awards from the Art Renewal Center, and multiple silver and gold medals from the juried annual Spectrum: The Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art.

Dani Vendrell Oduber "Vandrell"

Daniel Vendrell Oduber was born in Barcelona, Spain, He studies in  Escuela de Comic Joso and loves the realistic erotic art comics, pin-up manga's and 80's. Most of his work is done on Mac, but his portraits seem to have the texture and palette of traditional painting.

James Gurney (1958)

James Gurney was born in Glendale, California, United States in 1958. He is an artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia, which is presented in the form of a 19th century explorer’s journal from an island utopia cohabited by humans and dinosaurs.

Gurney's freelance illustration career began in the 1980s, during which time he developed his characteristic realistic renderings of fantastic scenes, painted in oil using methods similar to the academic realists and Golden Age illustrators. He painted more than 70 covers for science fiction and fantasy paperback novels, and he created several stamp designs for the US Postal Service, most notably The World of Dinosaurs in 1996.

Virgil Finlay (1914 - 1971)

Virgil Warden Finlay was born in Rochester, New York, United States, in 1914. He was a pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Finlay in 2012.

Michael Whelan (1950)

Michael Whelan was born in Culver City, California, United States, in 1950. He is an artist of imaginative realism. For more than 30 years he worked as an illustrator specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art. Since the mid-1990s he has pursued a fine art career, selling non-commissioned paintings through galleries in the United States and through his website.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Whelan in June 2009, the first living artist so honored. According to his Hall of Fame citation:

"Michael Whelan is one of the most important contemporary science fiction and fantasy artists, and certainly the most popular. His work was a dominant force in the transition of genre book covers away from the surrealism introduced in the 1950s and 1960s back to realism."

Julie Bell (1958)

Julie Bell was born in Beaumont, Texas, United States, in 1958. Julie has painted the covers for approximately 100 fantasy/science fiction books and magazines since 1990. In the early 1990s, she illustrated painted covers for video games as well as best-selling trading cards for the superheroes of Marvel and DC. A cover art image from the Sega Game Gear video game Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe would depict the semi-barbaric world that the game took place in; thus being entitled Savage Land by Bell herself.

Brian Froud (1947)

Brian Froud was born in Winchester, England, in 1947. Froud was the conceptual designer and costume designer for the films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. He has also worked with American writer Ari Berk on more recent books, including Goblins and The Runes of Elfland, and produced art books such as Good Faeries/Bad Faeries. One of his most famous art books, Faeries, was the basis of a 1981 animated feature of the same name.

Paul Lehr (1930 - 1998)

Paul Lehr was born in White Plains, New York in 1930. He dominated science fiction covers in the mid-1960s into the 1970s. Lehr studied illustration at the prestigious Pratt Institute. He contributed significantly to the distinctively imaginative style of SF art during that era, which for some represents the peak of the form's long history. As American publishers came to prefer more realistic art in the 1980s, Lehr focused instead on covers for the sf magazines Analog, Omni, Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction, and Weird Tales as well as covers for foreign publishers. 

Boris Vallejo (1941)

Boris Vallejo was born in Lima, Peru, in 1941. Vallejo works almost exclusively in the fantasy and erotic genres. His paintings have graced the covers of dozens of science fiction paperbacks and are featured in a series of best-selling glossy calendars. Subjects of his paintings are typically sword and sorcery gods, monsters, and well-muscled male and female barbarians engaged in battle. Some of his male figures were modeled by Vallejo himself, and many of his later female characters were modeled by his wife. His latest works still retain heavy fantasy elements, but lean more towards the erotic rather than pure fantasy themes.

Axel Torvenius (1979)

Axel Torvenius was born in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1979. He's been studying art in Småland for 2 years, animation for 2 years in Eksjö and informative illustration at Mälardalen´s University in Eskilstuna for three years. Since then he has been employed as a Concept Artist at the Swedish game developer Starbreeze. When not being in the office, he tries to be as creative as he can with his own projects and artworks.

Didier Graffet (1970)

Didier Graffet was born near Lyon, France, in 1970. He attended at Cohl School in Lyon, which specializes in illustration, cartoons and animations. In 1994, he began his current occupation as an independent illustrator.

In 2002, he received the Art & Fact 2002 and the audience award Visions of the Future 2002. In 2003, he received the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for his illustrations of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne from Gründ Publishing which was a bestseller in March. In 2009, he exhibited at the Maison d'Ailleurs in Switzerland.

Frank Kelly Freas (1922 - 2005)

Frank Kelly Freas was Born in Hornell, New York (United States) in 1922. The fantasy magazine Weird Tales published the first cover art by Freas on its November 1950. Over the next five decades, he created covers for hundreds of books and magazines (and much more interior artwork), notably Astounding Science Fiction both before and after its title change to Analog.

Freas was commissioned to paint the Skylab I insignia design and posters promoting the space program (used by NASA and now hanging in the Smithsonian Institution).

Zdzisław Beksiński (1929 - 2005)

Zdzisław Beksiński was born in Sanok, Poland in 1929. Beksiński executed his paintings and drawings either in what he called a 'Baroque' or a 'Gothic' manner. The first style is dominated by representation, with the best-known examples coming from his fantastic realism period when he painted disturbing images of a surrealistic, nightmarish environment. The second style is more abstract, being dominated by form, and is typified by Beksiński's later paintings.

Vincent Di Fate (1945)

Vincent Di Fate was born in Yonkers, New York, United States in 1945. He was an artist specialized in science fiction and fantasy illustration. He was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011. Di Fate studied at the Phoenix School of Design in New York City and received his MA in Illustration at Syracuse University.

He broke into speculative fiction pulp magazines with illustrations for three different stories in the August 1969 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, edited by John W. Campbell, and did his first cover illustration for the November issue. Di Fate won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist at the 1979 World Science Fiction Convention.

Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

Frank Frazetta was an american fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media.

Frazetta was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.

"When I drew something, she would be the one to say it was wonderful and would give me a penny to keep going. Sometimes I had nothing left to draw on but toilet paper. As I got older, I started drawing some pretty wild things for my age. I remember the teachers were always mesmerized by what I was doing, so it was hard to learn anything from them. So I went to art school when I was a little kid, and even there the teachers were flipping out."

Anthony S. Waters (1969)

Anthony S. Waters was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1969. He's best known for his work on Magic: The Gathering. He worked at Wizards of the Coast from 1997-1999 as a conceptual designer, graphic designer, writer, and card illustrator. His Dungeons & Dragons work includes Sharn: City of Towers and the 3rd edition Monster Manual II.

His illustrations have become synonymous with the bizarre and is often a go-to-guy for bringing the abstract to life in things such as elementals, fungi, and horrors.

"Alienation, isolation, anger aimed inward and outward, love, sacrifice and loss. Those things interest me most."

Sergey Kolesov "Peleng"

Sergey Kolesov (aka Peleng) was born in Czech Republic. He was working as a freelancer collaborating with some studios on concept art pieces and working externaly with Arkane studio, Dishonored game project.  Also Peleng worked on few illustrations on movie project with Viktor Antonov.

Now he's working as concept artist in Vatra Games Studio, Brno, Czech Republic.

Luis Royo (1954)

Luis Royo was born in 1954 in Olalla, a small village in Teruel, Spain. He studied technical design, painting, and interior design. By 1972 he began painting, exposing his art to new forum. In 1978 he became a comic artist and soon triumphed internationally.

With such a wide range of products, Royo has become an authentic cultural phenomenon. His books have gone through numerous editions and have been translated into French, English, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese. Magazines like Stampa, Airbrush-Action, and Penthouse have dedicated entire articles to him. Festivals, art galleries, and specialty stores continuously organize expositions honoring his work. He has received the Spectrum Silver Award (United States), Cartoomics (Italy), and the Pilgrim Prize (Russia), amongst many others.