"Most things I taught myself": Bente Schlick on becoming a successful fantasy illustrator

Digital art book cover by Bente Schlick — (Image credit: Allen & Unwin / Bente Schlick)

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.

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.

What are some of your main influences?

I’m still influenced by all the old masters, like William Turner for lighting. And John William Waterhouse for figures and the atmosphere; and Casper David Friedrich for the landscapes. Rembrandt, of course, for the light. You learn from it, right? And when you start painting, you just look at the images and make it in a similar way.

Also, I like to curate my Instagram, which is where I discover new, smaller artists. So that also inspires me. I’m not following a particular style. I follow wildlife artists, fantasy artists, but also book cover artists, graphic designers and book publishers for inspiration. I just love looking at art from people with skills instead of from AI.

Early in my career, it was the cinematography in The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones that inspired me. Now, I’m looking at the old masters, but at Instagram I created it in a way that I constantly see great art.

Mucha is also an influence. I’m not sitting there and starting and saying ‘Okay, I’m doing Mucha.’ But what I really like with Mucha is that you have a bit of realism in the faces and in the clothes, but they also have this graphic style. You see that influence in my picture Forsythia, and in Flame with its bold colours.

Alphonse Mucha started as an illustrator and he did advertising. So that’s different to Waterhouse or Rembrandt. I know that many artists have just one style, and that’s totally fine. But personally, I like to evolve or just try new things.

Art by Alphonse Mucha — Mucha often used a ‘Q’ formation as a framing device for characters

Image credit: Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images

What do fantasy images offer to you as an artist?

I think it’s just that you can imagine anything that you can come up with. You put your emotion into what you want to illustrate. There are no guidelines. I think especially nowadays with the world how it is, I think one prefers just to paint fantasy.

I also worked for book publishers where I had to illustrate wildlife, but that’s something different. The escape is most important for me: you can imagine any creature that you want to create, or a landscape that is maybe not real. You can add things that wouldn’t work in the normal world.

How do you employ digital tools?

I only work digitally, really. It’s just easier and quicker. I work with Photoshop, and of course I have my Wacom and that’s it. And sometimes I’m working a bit with a 3D program just to get anatomy right, for example. It’s just really been Photoshop and my Wacom since forever. I’ve never used anything else.

What project provides a good example of your process?

We could talk about the book covers and wraparound that I did. It was three books. It’s from the Landovel series of novels by Emily Rodda, for the publisher Allen & Unwin. I also had to do a wraparound cover.

These books came out at the same time, and so the challenge was to create three covers that somehow worked together in the same world, but of course with different colours for each book. You can also see that the type had to work with the illustration, and that’s something you always have to think of when you create a book cover.

Image 1 of 1

The wraparound was challenging because you have to create a very wide illustration. You have to think in 3D, like how you wrap around it. And, also, the type on the back and the front has to work. The first thing I did for each cover, of course, was create coloured sketches.

Then I also created the spines with a graphic showing the most important things of each book: a tower, a tree and waves. Those spines are little icons. And then, of course, the people were important to each cover.

There was one character on the first book and then four people on the second and five on the third. And so, you have to work out how you do the composition. Then, I did some sketches of how it could look.

The publisher didn’t know where they wanted to place the type. So, I had several options: they could put it above or in the middle or at the bottom. And then I got feedback and that’s usually when you do a little revision.

My cover illustrations are a bit inspired by very Turner-like lighting, and I really like that. Usually, I am more focused on characters in my work. So, this was also a challenge for me, and this is what I like about working as an illustrator.

You learn new things or focus not just on the stuff you usually do. But with the Landovel book covers, you have to do something else with the little shadow figures. I really like those.

It was a bit different from things that I usually do and paint. It’s a challenge for yourself. And of course, you learn with every commission. You learn how to approach different subjects or colour or even composition.

Sometimes, clients say, ‘You can do whatever you want, just try different styles.’ In the end, they do have the vision. So, it’s better for them to say ‘Okay: we want blue, green, and orange, or red,’ and then I’m working with it, and it’s definitely more helpful. I can work quicker with it. I really liked working on Landovel because I did have a lot of freedom.

In the top-left corner of the box for the Landovel set, there’s a graphic element rather than a painted one. What was the creative process for it?

They did some sort of glazing over the print. They used a wave that I had illustrated; a very graphic wave. I did it for the spine, and then I made some sort of pattern so that when you move the box (containing all three Landovel novels), you see the waves in the light. I like that combination of graphic design and illustration.

What’s the creative impulse for your personal piece entitled Forsythia?

It’s a bit different from the stuff that I usually do. It has bold colours and it’s more reduced in details. And it’s something I started to try recently. I love my style – the super-realistic, photorealistic painting – but I also love to try new things. It’s still in my range. It’s still a bit realistic, right? I’m trying to mix things; and, so Forsythia was actually a bit inspired by the Bauhaus style.

The colours are very flat and very bold, and I do love that style. I love both: very realistic like William Turner, but I also like the style from the Bauhaus. So that was what I started to get more into. I also have a puzzle (of Forsythia) from Buffalo Games. Forsythia started as a personal piece, and when I have free-time I send personal work to my agency.

When working to a commission, is there still an opportunity to express yourself within that work?

It’s different from client to client. Sometimes I just need to go by the brief, and that’s fine because I’m separating my personal work from my commissioned work. I also have client commissions where I can mix my personal style with the vision of the client and I’m taking the brief as the foundation. And then I’m adding what I think would look good within the briefing requirements.

Some clients come to me, and they say ‘Okay: do what you want. We have a brief, but you don’t need to do it in detail’ and other clients will say ‘We want it like this.’

If I’m creating something for myself, it’s different. If I can add my vision or not, that’s not a problem for me. When I started out, I did a lot of scary paintings that were very, very realistic and I just got a bit away from that. I like to try new things, but also combine styles.

You can see more of Bente's work on her website.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

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James has written about movies and popular culture since 2001. His books include Blue Eyed Cool: Paul Newman, Bodies in Heroic Motion: The Cinema of James Cameron, The Virgin Film Guide: Animated Films and The Year of the Geek. In addition to his books, James has written for magazines including 3D World and Imagine FX.