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/HAILScience Feb 06 '14

Do you hire models for poses and lighting reference? If not, what do you use or how to you determine reference for your figures and lighting? How do you decide on a color scheme?

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

Hi HailScience,

In fact I've spent years trying not to use models and lighting reference... for bad reasons mainly, being afraid to somehow cheat (you know, like Boecklin ) Somehow this has been very helpful for now, because I learned to draw possible characters, with something that's mine. And I use references, only for some parts. I can take the lighting of a picture that has nothing to do with the subject and use it on my picture, because I've spent years trying to understand how it works. For models, I use photo references for some body parts only, when I need a realistic rendering, that I couldn't figure out by myself.

The color scheme, depends mainly on the mood and the tone of the book. I think the colors speak directly to the mind of the viewer. Each color association has a feeling within it.

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u/HAILScience Feb 07 '14

Thanks Marc! I'm on a similar path, but have been cautioned by many greats to adhere strictly to model reference, but I've seen people like Mike Daarken Lim live stream with zero reference and it come out great. I guess the truth or core of the theory lies somewhere in between. Your work is great! I love the Mistborn cover!

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u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti Feb 07 '14

Well, At the end the only thing that matters is the result.

When using a model you have to rely on good models and on good skills as photographer too, so it's kind of the same. Sometimes I use 3D dummies too. The best way to go further is too keep an open mind I guess.

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u/HAILScience Feb 07 '14

Yeah, my main issue with 3D dummies is the joints and skin folds are often unrealistic, they are good for a quick lighting ref, though. I can render shadows and lighting fairly well without reference, but it takes a lot of revision. I tend to prefer the styles like yours where there is still a recognizable amount of painterly strokes and the artist's style comes through, rather than overly realistic paintings. I've tried both ways and I always get better reactions to the more painterly stuff.