#illustration

#illustration

Well known for its unique texture and unpredictable nature, this Texas-born and Toronto-based illustrator somehow gets a leash on it, creating semi-airbrushed, dreamy and playful scenes between eccentric characters and luminous colours. Dense with subjects and textures, Rylee's compositions explode with action and motion - like in The Cartoon Saloon, anthropomorphic animal cowboys drink, play cards and draw their pistols in a beautiful gradient that captures a moment where the dusty saloon is lit up by the firing of a revolver.

"It works for me best to draw analog, edit digitally and add text or colour my drawings in a second step. But for this I already need to know the text elements, so it usually takes me really long to figure out the different elements before I can really start working and puzzle everything together," says Leo. "Most often I work with already existing stories (not strictly texts) and love to do lots of research and deep dives to find links and parallels in other stories. It's important to add historical context and give the stories more dimension."

Feng Yitong is a Berlin-based illustrator from Xi'an, China whose comic and hand-drawn imagery addresses migration, cultural shifts and embodied experiences in heavy, tactile forms of oil pastels. Using skills learned from her bachelors and masters degrees in illustration at the Berlin University of the Arts, she sketches her emotive scenes, then scans before using a light table to transfer them onto A4 and A3 paper. Coloured with oil pastels, she achieves her sharp visual effects by using kitchen cloths to remove or mix thick marks to create defined edges and distinct segments of her dense images.

Those he saw as "most successful" had a "bold typographic and/or illustrative treatment" which in turn "countered the dominance" of the branding strip that ran down the side. "This realisation led me to define some rules for the designs of the individual covers that tried to ensure that the covers would never feel overwhelmed by the branding system," says Pete. "The core rule was that the Editions would essentially be typographic covers, or typographically-led covers in terms of the hierarchy between type and image."

Based in Brazil, Arthur Randolpho is an illustrator who has worked across comics, games and books, and now aspires to be a character designer for animation projects. Working both digitally and using traditional watercolours and pencils, he says his biggest inspirations are Carter Goodrich, Nico Marlet, Matias Bergara and Cory Loftis. Below he shares four examples of his work: an original character design and three unique reinterpretations of well-known characters.

The name Ana Fedina may not ring a bell, but if you've played games like "Diablo IV," you've seen her work. For more than seven years, Fedina has been working as a professional artist and has contributed illustrations to games like "Raid: Shadow Legends" as well. Most recently, she was the illustrator for "The Armory of Heroes," a full-art compendium of weapons and character art released by the gaming and media company Critical Role in July.

Based in France, Roberto Ricci is a self-taught comic artist who works in publishing, video games and movies, as well as in teaching. He's particularly inspired by Metal Hurlant authors, and his latest clients include Dark Horse Comics and Activision. He works in a wide variety of mediums, but particularly likes traditional mediums like ink, watercolour, acrylic and gouache. Below he shares three examples of his work.

This year has produced a glorious array of movie posters, and although there was plenty to admire in the brash marketing of big budget franchise fare - there was some interesting work around Tron: Ares and Thunderbolts, for example - it's perhaps telling that the most eye-catching creativity can be found promoting lower budget films that don't have recognisable IP to fall back on.

The art of illustration is thriving in 2025, in defiance of a year where generative AI imagery skyrocketed in its pervasiveness. Taking the top spot is Angelica Frey's deep dive into the enduring influence of the 2000 game The Sims, where isometric dollhouses of quirky NPCs have inspired creatives for 25 years. Likewise, Luca Bjørnsten's crayon illustrations of 90s televisions, VHS tapes and computer screens has transported you all back to earlier days of home technology.

For the hand-painted cover, Murugiah recreated his digital mock up drawings onto heavy stock watercolour paper with red ink. After the ink drawings were done, they were then taped to the drawing board where Murugiah dripped paint and moved the paper around, applying randomised brush strokes onto the paper. The result is a richly textured background wash, made in reaction to the natural dripping of the paint.

"In autumn 2023, we started talking in emails, and it wasn't until the winter of 2024 that we started the project," Borovsky said.

The Incredible Psychedelic Paintings Of Yoko d'Holbachie From The Other Side Of The Rainbow This Artist Duo Uses Face As A Canvas To Recreate Famous Classic Paintings Artist Breaks The Traditional Masculinized Image Of Famous People By Taking Them To Their Pink World Artist Modernizes Disney Characters By Placing Them In All Sorts Of Interesting Scenarios Maud Madsen's 'Daisy Chain': An Intimate Exploration of the Female Body and the Sanitization of Memory

Sebastian Foster is thrilled to present its 2025 Fall Print Set, marking the 13th anniversary of the collection since publishing the first set in 2012. The new release features 20 works by well-established illustrators, printmakers, and painters from around the world. The prints in this set have all been published as relatively small editions, hand-signed, and numbered by the artists.

After setting up a charity for illustration in 2002 and running the House of Illustration in King's Cross from 2014 to 2020, Sir Quentin Blake is finally opening a gallery dedicated to the art form in 2026. Taking over an 18th century waterworks in Clerkenwell, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration will be the largest space of its kind, with three galleries showcasing the breadth and depth of illustration through regularly rotating exhibitions, plus a library, garden and cafe.

The aptly named Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration is coming to Clerkenwell next May, and it's set to be the biggest venue of its kind in the world. Its founder and namesake, Sir Quentin Blake, is one of the most prolific British illustrators of all time, having drawn the covers for most of Roald Dahl's novels and countless other children's books over his near-60-year career.