Sci-Fi-O-Rama is excited to bring you a recent chat with one the world’s finest contemporary science fiction illustrators.
He is an artist as talented as he is prolific, deftly weaving the most astonishingly beautiful worlds with subtle nods to all the finest masters of the craft. Simply put, he is a veritable tour de force of modern sci-fi and fantasy art.
Our guest, of course, is the sublime Pascal Blanche.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your background, your early influences and inspirations?
Hi, so I am Art director at Ubisoft Montreal for over 15 years now, but I am more known around as a digital artist and freelancer. I am French and now Canadian, and as far as I remember I’ve always loved stop motion, Muppets, comics, Star Wars and daydreamed about having the opportunity to work in this field. I have a degree in Visual Arts form my art school in Marseille (south of France) and earned all the rest in the field, so to speak.
Above: “Belt 71″
Q: Obviously you have a pretty cool day job, in broad strokes can you tell us what your daily activities involve?
It involves lots of meetings in committee that’s for sure! More seriously, I love my job. There are so many different aspects to it, depending where you stand in the production of a video game. Conception is about building a visual around an idea, preproduction is about building pipelines, art direction and visual language that all can follow, production is about firefighting and pushing the quality while aways taking advantage of the skills of your team.
I usually like to follow the creation of a game from A to Z. I work daily on establishing with the team key language that defines the game and finding visual solutions for game design. It is a teamwork really. People tend to think that an art director makes lots of decisions, but it is more a concerted evolution of design; visual design and story design. Lots of requests and needs have to be taken in consideration, so I act more as a problem solver and also try to come up with a range of visual solutions. That is what I like about the job each production has its own dynamic and you always discover new techniques, new challenges and new people too.
Above: “Ghostship” and “Shipwreck”
Q: In addition to the world building for your day job you’ve amassed a huge amount of personal Illustration. Can you shed some light on the universe you’re building?
My sidework, the more personal one, is a bit like my oxygen tank. There I am free to build whatever I like. It is very important for me, to keep my skills sharp, explore without time constraints.
It is a slow process, but somehow, step by step I feel like there is a bit of a universe, slowly building up yes. I call it my Derelict Planet and I put in there all the aliens, monsters, warriors with blue skins, and giant robots I want. They all come from the same place: comics, Heavy Metal magazine, Moebius, Corben, Frazetta, Dune, Lovecraft, Otomo, Miyazaki, and plenty overs. During my childhood, the 70’s and 80’s, there was an unique creative energy in Europe, lots of Sci-Fi and fantasy, lots of freedom, and I think I am in debt to those giants, and I feel sometimes like the keeper of the flame.
Above first: “Landscape D” and second “Bird of Prey”
Q: One of the most striking aspects of your personal work is choice of colour palettes, which are often almost Fauvist. Where does your inspiration lay?
It comes back to the same artists I mentioned above. If you watch closely the works of Moebius, Corben, Druillet, some Frazetta paintings, some Otomo covers, it is all there. My specific palette, orange and green, tends to change these days, more blues and reds. I don’t know where I’ll be in a few years, but right now I am still exploring. It is more the colours that choose themselves by the way. I try to restrict it to a minimum as well, I feel like the work has more impact that way, but I still have lots to learn.
Above: “Foss Station 77” and then “Odysseus”
Q: Obviously you seem to be able to work at a prolific pace, can you give us a rough idea of your workflow and tools used?
My workflow has always been the same, with a few additions over the years. I start in 3ds Max, by posing my character (using the same models I keep on evolving) then I make a snapshot, build up the elements (armors/weapons and so on) using lots of meshes I’ve collected or built over time. I am very fond of kit-bashing (putting together pre-modelled kits to give them a new shape) then I export the different elements into Zbrush where I can add lots more details, from there I render it in Keyshot, my new favorite renderer (so fast) and from there I finish up everything in Photoshop. Most of the time it takes me between three to four nights to complete an illustration.
Above first: “Oracle”
Q: Judging by your output of work you seem busier than ever, what have been some recent highlights?
A new PC! No seriously! Ive been dragging my same old PC for years, and well, it was becoming more and more difficult to work the way I wanted.
I also take advantage of all the new markets that are rising in the digital forums, lots of very good artists share their own kit-bash collections, brushes, shaders.. and with the ever evolving community, there is always a new trick to learn, a new technique to discover that leads you further. Personally I became more aware of what I like to do, or how to deal with my own creative process.
Above: “Leviathan”
Q: As a world-building artist, there are obviously plenty of chances to sew Easter eggs or hidden references into the fabric of art? is there any you’d care to share?
Hmm sorry, not into Easter eggs in my art, but I do like to surf on vibe, like the few space art I made recently, inspired by John Harris and Chris Foss, so yes I am more into thematics. It helps to think about my art as a whole set, not a one shot, and that also enhances my creativity.
Above: “Alien Mondo Poster”
Q: As a massive fan of the Alien universe I loved your spin on Giger and Scott’s universe, is this something you’ll be revisiting?
Most certainly! I feel that the dark sci-fi genre can still be explored, so yes, definitely something I have in mind!
Above first: “Expedition” and second “Styx”
Q: It seems that Montreal is a real hub for sci-fi oriented artists? On Facebook, we’ve highlighted work by Brian Sum, Raphael Lacoste, and Nivanh Chanthara, and Antonio Caparo, just to name a few.
We all know each other; Nivanh is a few doors away on my street, and I met Denis Villeneuve once too, he lives in the same area. So yeah we bump into each other a lot. We are sadly too busy with our lives, but always ready to share a beer when someone pokes me up!
Above: “Warlord”
Q: Can you tell us a bit about the Montreal ‘scene’? What attracts so many top-notch talents to that city? How do you all relate to each other, and how do you affect each other’s work?
It IS a very small community, yes. Some of us are freelancers so we are meant to meet from time to time, and lots of us go from one project to another, one studio to another, so we all basically know each other pretty well. The secret is in the fact that Montreal is a nice entry point for lots of European artists, lots of Frenchies too, easier for us to test the North American life before going somewhere else. Montreal is actually a great city to live in, because it feels European enough. Not too big, I walk to work, not expensive, safe, multi-cultural. Yes, the winter here is insane (we just got 10 inches of snow at minus 25 degrees, more snow coming up in three days apparently) but summers and fall are so warm and colorful, lots of festivals too, and the city is not far away from all the big US East coast cities… I’m here to stay! When I am offered a job somewhere else, I always end up by saying ‘Why don’t you open up a studio in Montreal? You would have an amazing pool of talents here!’
Above: “Dino Blues”
Q: And finally, a standard Sci-Fi-O-Rama topic for you; is there an obscure sci-fi, cult or fantasy gem that you would recommend as essential viewing or reading?
Just discovered ‘The Way of Kings’ by Brandon Sanderson. How come I never heard of this guy? Amazing world building in there, got lots of ideas from his pages already. For sci-fi, I read ‘The Three Body Problem’, ‘The Dark Forest’ and ‘Death’s End’ by Liu Cixin… amazing as well. I try to read a lot actually. That is one of my best fuels for the imagination.
To see more of Pascal’s supreme talent follow him at artstation.com/pascalblanche and twitter.com/pascalblanche
Many thanks Pascal!
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