Aurélien Predal is another talented alumni member of Gobelins. He currently works as a visual development artist at Sony Pictures Animation. He contributed to the excellent Sketchtravel project, and he has also successfully been funded on Kickstarter to produce a short animated film titled ‘Batz’, which was co-created by Max Maleo. It’s incredible, the way his loose marks create these magical environments.

Elsa Duhamel is an animator and visual development artist from France. Her work is so beautiful; I couldn’t help but go through every video on her Vimeo page. The soft lighting and generous textures are always evident, no matter which medium she works in. Her characters have that charm that I think goes missing in a lot of mass-produced animation.

Hugues Mahoas is from France and works in the animation industry, with his background art standing out as a real strength along with his character design. I love the eerie quality in his work, and he has a special talent for picking colour combinations that are unusually brilliant. Visit his blog for more.

Parisian Julien Bizat is a talented former Gobelins student currently plying his trade in feature length animation amongst other things. He is a talented illustrator, animator and character designer that I’ve admired for a few years now, so it was about time I shared. There is a lot of brilliant work to be found on his blog, from development work to finished artwork. Enjoy!

‘Rockheads’ is a stunning collection of minimalist portraits of musicians created using bold colours and vector graphics. Their creator Marc-Antoine Herrmann says about the work:

“Fifty rockstars – for the moment – a very personal choice, based on my tastes for artists who have – at least for me – something remarkable…from Arcade Fire to John Lennon and moving to Adele, REM, Chuck Berry, Jarvis Cocker, Oasis, Paul Weller, Serge Gainsbourg, Radiohead, Moby and the White Stripes…

ROCKHEADS is my way of depicting the musicians: sleek graphics and powerful colors. The minimalist line captures the essence of the personality of the artists. A look, a smile and sometimes a small reference to the history of the musician and you are eager to (re) explore the world and the songs of the artist. Harmonies of two or three colors echo the musical universe of the musician and give the designs an extra energy.”

Caroline Andrieu spent five years as Art Director of Condé Nast Digital France, working on Vogue and GQ websites and later GQ magazine, heading up the iPad version. Working in the fashion industry for so long has expanded her interest in the field, providing invaluable subject matter and inspiration for her excellent illustrations.

Caroline uses large paper, inks and interestingly, coloured pencils for a lot of her illustrations. Clients include Rouge (China), Vogue, BMW Magazine, Diesel Factory and Lancôme).

French graphic designer Maxime Morin has some really edgy illustrations on his website. I love his collection of Yukamis, although admittedly I don’t really know what on Earth a Yukami is. I think it’s related to the Mexican Day of the Dead from the looks of things. Nonetheless, very charming characters indeed. Maxime also created a set of playing cards, all with incredible clean line-work. For those of you who like a bit of clever photo-cut-up style illustration, you’ll be in for a treat if you visit his website. Enjoy!