Mélanie Delon

Son site

Mélanie Delon est née en 1980 en France. Elle a publié plusieurs art book et ces peintures sont vraiment très jolies. Je vous laisse découvrir !

Voilà une interview trouvée ici

en anglais, même si elle française :

Hi could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in CG and are you self taught or taken some training?

I’m a freelance illustrator based in Paris. I’m a self-taught, I started to work and discover Photoshop quite lately, and I was 24/25 years old. At this moment I was in a 3d school (I wanted to create video games), but I quickly realized 3d wasn’t my thing. I was spending my time drawing instead of modeling/animating…So I started to work on my 2d skills alone, it was quite difficult at the beginning, Photoshop was a stranger to me, and drawing with a tablet was truly painful for someone who has always drawn with traditional pens.

Why you decide to become the Illustrator and from where you got the inspirations?

It just happened; I was showing my stuff on the web, different 2d forums, just to have feedback on my work. I found my first contracts and my publishing house this way.Internet is really a good way to get known and find professional contacts.Regarding inspiration, it comes from a lot of things, could be from a movie scene or something I saw in the street, or a song…It’s quite hard to tell actually, it’s a kind of huge mixture.

What software program(s) do you use for your illustrations and why?

I usually work with Photoshop (CS4) and Painter (XI). They are complementary I think. Photoshop is very good and optimized to paint small details, and Painter brings more “traditional” painting feeling to the image. I can’t really tell why and when I switch to one or the other, I just feel it. It’s really personal I guess. One thing I’m sure of is that I can’t work without Photoshop or Painter, I really need the both.

How you think of a life without a graphic tablet?

HELL! Really! My tablet is my best friend since years, now I couldn’t live without her (yep it’s a girl: p). More seriously, it’s a fantastic innovation, working with this kind of tool, not only the tablet but the whole computer and painting software, are a revolution in the art field. It brings us so much freedom in the creating process; I think I couldn’t go back to traditional painting.

How much you enjoy creating an illustration for the book covers, comics and magazines? Which type of instructions you receive from the client?

This kind of work is pretty different from my personal stuff. I do what the client wants, so I usually don’t have a lot of freedom, but it’s quite a good exercise and very fun. Usually the art director gives me few instructions and details about how the composition should looks like, and what kind of character they want. After that I do a quick sketch and wait for the feedback, if they like it then I can go with the finished illustration, if they don’t they explain what they didn’t like and so I do another sketch with modifications etc…It’s a team work actually

Your portfolio contains many beautiful girls with emotions, any special reason of mostly painting the girls?

I usually paint mostly girls because I always try to represent a feeling in my paintings, and to get it right I need to identify myself to the character, obviously it’s easier when it’s a woman. But I’ll do man, don’t worry (I’ve done one for Imagine fx issue57 cover, a vampire!), not a classic heroic fantasy characters, probably more normal man, with a lot of class/style…

Before creating anything you done some research and pencil drawing or directly on the digital canvas? What is your favorite canvas color when starting a painting?

I used to start my paintings without previous studies, but I recently changed my work process, and do pencil researches. They are really simple and rough, but they help me a lot to know where I want to go with an illustration. I don’t have a particular favorite color, but I do have one I really don’t like: pink. I have huge difficulties to work with this color, especially when I mix it with blue.

Have you seen or used the Adobe Photoshop CS5? Which feature you like the most and what is still missing?

Yes, CS5 is awesome, they have finally added feature for painting. The new brushes are really really cool. And the mixer brush tool is simply amazing, it’s like a small painter in Photoshop, and I do hope they will develop this feature in their next updates. For the moment, I would like them to let us create our own bristles brushes.

Please tell us in detail about your work Blood, why and how you painted that image.

Blood was a kind of “fanart”, I was playing Dragon age: origins (Bioware), suddenly I felt the need to create a real (sexy) fantasy character, the one I would love to play. At first I wanted to paint a portrait, but it quickly ended with a full character. I also wanted to have 2 huge dragon’s head on her shoulder armor, but they were too realistic and didn’t fit the character style, so I decided to do something more “abstract”. The contrast in colors is also really important, the background is very pale and desaturated, and her face is really colorful with red, orange, pink. It was really fun to do

Are you workaholic or do you also have time for hobbies, btw what you like to do in free time if you have?

I’m not a workaholic; I do really need breaks and free time. It’s important to find inspiration and ideas. I usually read, watch movies and play (too much) video games. This is a great way to get disconnected from the reality and from my everyday work, and it’s quite entertaining and fun too (inspiring also) :p

How would you like to see your career evolve in the next few years?

Probably doing the same thing as today. But I would love to working with the movie industry. I’m a bit tired of being alone all day long in front of my computer, and working with a team sounds really attractive to me. So maybe I’ll be there in few years, I’m crossing the fingers.

What tips you will like to give to the upcoming artists, how they can create beautiful illustrations?

Never give up, this is maybe the most important advice. Stay true to yourself, paint and create what you like, don’t paint something because people like it or will like it. Need to keep patience, illustration demands a lot of time. And work, work, work, that’s the key 😉

Finally, believe in your dreams 😉