"Most things I taught myself": Bente Schlick on becoming a successful fantasy illustrator
(Image credit: Allen & Unwin / Bente Schlick) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The illustrator and concept artist Bente Schlick has worked with…
Annons
Annons
(Image credit: Allen & Unwin / Bente Schlick) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The illustrator and concept artist Bente Schlick has worked with major publishing houses in Germany such as HarperCollins and Carlsen and with international publishers including Bloomsbury and US Games. Her work is suffused with qualities of the otherworldly thanks to a long-standing interest in fantasy images and ideas, and her commissions have offered the opportunity to bring her own creative sensibility to projects including cover images for the Landovel trilogy of novels for young readers.In our interview, Bente discusses aspects of her process when working to commission, and also her affinity for images and visual traditions that satisfy the desire that we all have to escape. In a touching note, Bente recalls that she illustrated a cover for ImagineFX magazine in 2009 when she was still studying at art school. “To be having this conversation for the magazine 17 years later is a bit like coming full circle,” she says. Forsythia draws on the Bauhaus influence for an image that combines realism with a more graphic quality (Image credit: Bente Schlick)Bente, what was your art education and training like? I started as a traditional artist when I was younger, when I was 17, and I got my first graphic tablet. And then, I taught myself how to do digital painting. After finishing school, I worked in an advertising agency for six months to learn more about the programs – not just Photoshop, but also InDesign and Illustrator – and it was required for my art school later. When I was about 20, I started studying illustration and design at art school for three years. And then, when I was finished, I immediately started to work as a freelancer.Most things I taught myself, actually. I don’t know if I really needed that school, but I guess when I was younger I thought, ‘I need to study something in this direction to get into the field'.During my studies, I started getting jobs for book publishers and then I was also published by Ballistic Publishing. And then I was discovered by a licensing agency (MGL) in London, and I’ve been with them for 15 years. It’s not just that I’m working on book partnerships, but also the images that I create for myself – they get licensed for puzzles or calendars, and of course for an artist that’s also an income.
