Surreal Worlds with artist Ben Bauchau
Night CrewWe recently chatted with artist Ben Bauchau, one of the first illustrators we brought on board to work on artwork for Cyberpunk Legends over a year ago. Ben is an artist based in Belgium, creating visuals for game clients like Night Crew, concept art for TV and film, and brand and communications work. We love his mysterious, otherworldly style. You can see some of his recent personal work on his website.
—IM
Crimson Flags, by Ben Bauchau for by Ben Bauchau for Cyberpunk Legends / Night Crew Games.
Irene, Night Crew Games: Give us a quick intro to you and your work as a freelance illustrator and concept artist.
Ben Bauchau: Hey! I'm Ben, an artist from Belgium. I work as a freelance illustrator with my wife, Elsa. I focus on the drawing, and she does all the colors. We work on all kinds of different gigs for board games and video games, visual development, branding or communication, and we enjoy creating narrative and surreal illustrations in our free time.
What’s your background like? Did you train for illustration specifically?
I've always been the kid who draws, at home, at school, on paper, on walls, anywhere I could. When I went to college, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do though as I didn't imagine a career as an illustrator being an option. So I went to a 3D animation school to get a Master’s degree (where I met Elsa) after a Bachelor’s degree in digital art. This wasn't exactly the right path for me, but I learned a lot and this is where I became serious about my art and passion.
You mentioned that you’re one half of a duo with your wife, Elsa. Can you share more about your creative partnership and process?
The process as a duo is something we really enjoy. I'll always lead when it comes to sketching and figuring out the composition of the drawings, but Elsa's second opinion often helps figure out this stage. Once the sketch is clean enough, I'll do the linework with ink on paper, and once this is done, Elsa will take the lead and start working on the colors in Photoshop.
In our personal works, we like not to take colors into account before the inking is done, as it leaves some questions unanswered in the process. So, Elsa will usually block the base flat colors and then have a grey version for values. At this point, the illustration takes a new direction that I may not have expected, which is very cool. Then colors, gradients and other effects are being defined, I'll add in shading and lighting, and finally, Elsa does a final pass of color grading and other compositing edits.
I am really drawn to the environments and color palettes in your work. Some pieces are evocative of Japanese wood block prints and of Moebius in tone. Can you talk about some of your and Elsa’s inspirations?
I think we both like to explore strange and mysterious worlds through our drawings, there's always this desire to go to a place unknown. In that sense, we are always attracted and inspired by scifi/fantasy art, and imaginary art in general where there's a unique visual treatment, and colors that don't seem real.
We take inspiration from different places and eras, from masters like Moebius or Philippe Druillet, but also painters such as Caspar David Frierich, Peter Brueghel, Frank Frazetta, John Blanche and Ukiyo-e artists such as Kuniyoshi, Hasui or Hiroshige.
What we both enjoy in our collaboration is to actually step in an unknown world, not exactly knowing what the other will add to figure out each illustration's final tone.
What is most interesting to you about Cyberpunk (either Cyberpunk (TM) or the cyberpunk genre more broadly)?
I initially have a strong interest in everything fantastical and gritty. I especially like worlds in which denizens can be anything and end up geared up to the max, so what I love about the cyberpunk genre is this dark and chaotic world, where people can become robotic monstrosities and costume/set design can go wild. I really enjoyed the Netflix anime [“Cyberpunk Edgerunners”], and of course, “Blade Runner” and “Akira” are favorites. When I was a kid, a friend had some of the RPG books and I really loved the art. …[S]imilar to Warhammer rulebooks or older video game booklets, these all definitely influenced my art early on.
Besides Cyberpunk Legends, what are some of your favorite or proudest commissioned projects or IPs you’ve gotten to work with?
One of our first projects we are still fond of is “Survive Until Daylight”, a board game by Flyos games that was made in 2019, when I was still working solo. This was the first time Elsa stepped in to collaborate on a project.
On a personal level, I was also very happy to work on an animated short from the “American Gods” TV show, the whole illustrated branding of an online short film platform called “Shortverse,” and a new project coming up this year, which I can't say much about but is set in a new universe I really enjoy! In general we are really happy and grateful when a project allows us to flesh out a new world through illustration.
Can you tell us some details about your experience working on one of your illustrations for Cyberpunk Legends?
I loved working on the illustration for “Good Plan.” I remember the brief was actually simple but sounded like this was meant to showcase a guy that just goes crazy, all-in. I definitely wanted to go for a dynamic low angle shot, and even though the scene is fairly simple, I really liked how the yellow fog gave a special atmosphere to this scene. I was afraid the character pose would be a hassle because of that angle, but it came out surprisingly well in the initial sketch.