illustrator Kilian Eng gives you a taste of what's to come in his surrealistic images from the future. If you like Blade Runner or the French animated classic Fantastic Planet, you have to scope this work out. Check out more of his stuff HERE.
MORE BELOW THE BREAK
He has a new collection coming out.
Check out the video.
Below is an interview from Sci-Fi-O-Rama, click HERE for the full post.
Hi Kilian, tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m a 29 year old illustrator and live in Stockholm/Sweden. My commercial work as an illustrator began around 4 years ago when I started to do record covers for bands in the electronic music scene. However I had been drawing on my own stories long before and exploring different sides in my work. My education was at Konstfack, University of Arts Craft & Design in Stockholm at the graphic Design & Illustration department which is also called storytelling at Master’s level. From there I graduated in 2010 with an animated short film and I have continued to work on this afterwards so its soon to be completed.
You have a very distinctive style, how would you best describe your work?
Well its perhaps easier for others to put a label on it but I would say something like “often rich in colour with a surreal sci-fi approach with alot of focus on environments and architecture”. Perhaps not exactly what I would say if someone asked me on the street, but I hope it explains something of what I do.
Your portfolio oozes Sci-Fi and Fantasy references, but is there a visual style/genre you identify with more than others? (ie Cyberpunk, Post Apocalyptic, Surrealist?)
I would say that all those themes visit my work from time to time. Its always hard and certainly not necessary to sort out exactly what takes place in the pictures but I would say that a rather surrealistic approach often comes back, both in motive and the way that some work is being created. Surrealism is of course a huge area with limitless approach, but for me some of the best moments in the work process is when the subconscious is allowed to take part. It doesn’t happen too often but from time to time things just go almost by themselves and you can create like 5 pieces without thinking or analysing the process. Afterwards you start to put in the meaning and you try to understand what it is you have in front of you. At that point you can start to see explanations and the meaning or at least hopefully something that can be interesting to look at. When I do commissioned work I plan it much more and think about what kind of themes/genre I want to include, there you have to respect and be aware of the expectations from others on the outcome.
Do you work straight to screen (via Wacom) or does part of your workflow still involve pen and paper?
At the moment almost all of my work is drawn with the Wacom board, some exceptions are black and white outline illustrations that i scan and the color in the computer. Then I draw a lot of rough ideas in the sketchbook offcourse.
And following on from that, which part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
I love to create shapes and plan the composition and space in images so I would say to build the environment where everything takes place. If you look at a lot of my work your can see that many times it puts focus on the room, often the surroundings are dominating the image and the character’s just passing trough or standing there without really doing anything, just taking in whats around them.
What are you working on at the moment? anything exciting coming up?
I’m just finishing a commission as concept designer for a sci-fi short film, the details around this project is still top secret but I have a very good feeling about the whole thing. Other than that I’m doing some cover artwork and trying to develop and improve my work with animation. Then there wil be a little book with my work in preparation. It will hopefully be available in december this year. (Sci-Fi-O-Rama says, more on this soon!)
**A couple Sci-Fi-O-Rama generic question’s
What’s the best piece of Sci-Fi related material you’ve come across and been impressed by recently (book, film, artist)
As many others I’m really into H.P Lovecraft and just found out that in the 80’s a great Swedish Actor called Ernst Hugo Järegård read Lovecraft stories to tape and they are available as audiobooks. So far I have just been listening to a short preview of the reading but it sounds fantastic. What makes this so great is that I can’t think of any other actor here in Sweden who would fit better to read Lovecraft for an audience. This is of course very local as its only in my native language but it made me very happy to find out about!
Finally a follow on to the last question, any classic Sci-Fi material (book, film, artist) you could recommend think reader’s might not know of or have overlooked?
Some time ago i watched two short movies by Saul Bass and Elaine Bass called Phase IV and Quest, amazing and visually very strong films.
Many thanks Kilian!