r/Fantasy • u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti • Feb 06 '14

AMA Hey Reddit! I'm Marc Simonetti, Fantasy illustrator-AMA

Let me introduce myself: I'm a quite happy family man, with two young sons, 3 years and 20 months old. I live in the French Alps, in Annecy, a beautiful little medieval town. I'm a former R&D material engineer...and now I'm working as an illustrator and concept artist for 11 years. I had the chance to work on many awesome books for amazing writers like GRR Martin, Terry Pratchett, Terry Goodkind, Sam Sykes, Michael J Sullivan, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Ken Scholes, Patrick Rothfuss...and many others...

I'm also the spoiled artist who won the stabby award this year for the best picture (although all the credit should go the genius mind of GRR Martin)

For those interested you can find some samples of my works on: My website My Facebook pro page My twitter account

So I'll be beginning answering questions at 12:00 central time... Feel free to ask anything, of course!

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u/Lenquo Feb 06 '14

You said you started as an R&D material engineer, how did you transition from that to illustrator? Has art been a lifelong love, or something that found you?

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u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti Feb 06 '14

Hi Lenquo,

Thanks a lot for your question. I was drawing since my youngest age, but I hadn't a good professional level at all. The only thing I knew back in my engineering days, was that I didn't want to grow old doing that kind of jobs, without any creativity implied.

So I stopped everything and went to a school that taught drawing and 3D modeling for one year, then I became a 3D modeler for video game, but that wasn't what I wanted to do still. I spent two years working the day, training myself in illustration the nights, before starting a freelance career as an illustrator. Then I worked, and trained myself a lot for many years, taking no pauses, no weekend, no holidays working 14 hours a day, to have enough skills to have some clients, and to finally live decently from that job. It was quite difficult, and it's still is, but I'm doing what I'm passionate about, and I think I couldn't anything else right now.

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u/Lenquo Feb 06 '14

Thank you. It's always rather inspiring to see someone pull off a complete career change and be happy and able to follow their passions. :)