Bastien Lecouffe Deharme – Artist Spotlight

Some of you may know this already, but I am an art addict. I love fantasy art and sci-fi art and classical art and surreal art and…well you get the idea. I even have a rather large Pinterest board (or 10 or 11…) full of my favorite artists, art, and cover art. Today I was reintroduced to an artist via the magic of the internet, whose work I’d not looked at in whole before. I was so impressed I decided I should share with all of you!

His most recent piece is what brought him to my (and many others’) attention.

It’s a stunning piece of work. Unfortunately, the author was not impressed with the cover and decided to announce his distaste publicly and at the expense of the artist. (He has since apologized.) But rather than dwell on that unpleasantness, let’s take a look at some art!

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme has been a professional artist since 2005. His resume is impressive, as is the list of clients he’s worked with: Spectrum, Random House, Tor Books, Orbit Books, Del Rey, SFX Magazine, to name a few! We’ve featured his cover work on site before, but rather than blather on, let’s let his artwork speak for itself.

The Magician of the Mountain of Death

This stunning piece was used as the cover for Spectrum 22. I love the etherealness and the woman’s expression. The way everything seems to be fading or crumbling, juxtaposed with the red flames wreathing her head is just beautiful.

Battle for Zendikar

If landscapes are more your thing, here’s a cool magical pillar used for the Magic the Gathering card, Reclaiming Vines. The fact that the image is at an angle makes the bursting vines seem to fly off the page and threaten to destroy even the painting itself.

If you click here you can see how this piece went from sketches and rough drafts to completed work (I particularly like how he designed the runic shapes for the pillar’s sides).

Sentinel of the Eternal Watch

This is one of my favorites. A warrior both elegant and fierce, just as liking to cut you in two as pardon you. This was the first piece of his art that was used for a Magic the Gathering card.

Click here to see the original sketch for this card. Even in simple charcoal it is a magnificent piece.

Red Sister

And we’ll end with a Fantasy-Faction favorite: the US cover art for Mark Lawrence’s Red Sister. This is what I had to say when I first saw the piece for the book’s cover reveal:

The US cover for Red Sister has a spark of life that seems to burn off the page. Nona is fierce and proud . . . This is no one to be trifled with. She is powerful and she knows it and she’s going to make sure we know it too!

And that concludes today’s art tour, which I had loads of fun writing and researching. If you have a favorite fantasy artist you’d like us to highlight, tell us in the comments!

To learn more about Deharme’s work you can visit his website or follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @deharme.

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