Apocalypse Advent Calendar

It's nearly the Christmas season - the time of year for goodwill, family, gifts and advent calendars. However, if you're the type who avoids a warm and fluffy Yuletide in favour of locust plagues, meteorites and terrifying earthquakes, then head over to the Apocalypse Advent Calendar. Starting on 1 December, the French illustrator Posta will be unveiling his own take on the season. And we've got some exclusive preview images from his calendar just for you.

The idea was inspired by media hype about how the Mayans predicted a cataclysm for 2012, and religious warnings about the Judgement Day. "I just thought it would be interesting to mix this whole end-of-the-world thing and Christmas time," says Posta.

"Those two things are going to hound people more and more during December. So an advent calendar seemed to me a relevant medium to work on. It's also a funny way to take the drama out of the scary things that are going to bloom all around us."

For each day in December, Posta has created a different illustration. Mainly they're based on reference images sketched in his notebook, then developed further using Photoshop, Illustrator and, sometimes, 3D software. They're certainly to be taken with a pinch of salt - there's usually a thread of humour alongside the social commentary Posta's work. The Apocalypse Advent Calendar will also appear on Facebook.

Jolly judgement day

"Every artwork will be a sort of ancient bas relief, showing possible causes of the apocalypse as well as its mystical and societal symbols," he adds. "It's obviously a silly, joking project, but through it I also wanted to illustrate how the idea of the judgment day is all over the place - in our education, in tacky and poorly researched TV documentaries, etc."

Previous projects by Posta have contained a similar mixture of commentary, humour and cynicism. His Goldman Sharks (above) series looked at the greed of top financiers, which caused global economies to crash, and he regularly updates his H_NGM_N projects with topical imagery including Malala Yousafzai (below), Pussy Riot and the Syrian conflict.