In illustrator Chiara Xie 's work, everything is in motion. Rooted in a deep reverence for vitality, Chiara is fascinated by "the rhythm that flows through a scene", lingering like a suspended breath, and other times "surging as a vibrant, agile current of motion". It's not hard to know what she means: every illustration is filled with motion, arcs of light and air bouncing off every corner.
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.
