Concept Design & Illustration – Armel Gaulme

Armel Gaulme is a renowned French illustrator with an exceptional talent, who has illustrated many books. He works both in publishing and in animation as a concept designer. Armel also shares his skills and knowledge with younger generations as a teacher at the École Méliès.

A graduate of the Penninghen school in Paris (2003), he began his career alternating between type design and illustration for publishing houses and youth magazines. After meeting Maylis de Kerangal, then director of the Baron Perché publishing house, he illustrated several books dedicated to fairy tales (the “Il était une fée” collection), historical stories (Alexandre et Darius), as well as a very personal project: Créatures insolites et stupéfiantes, rencontrées au cours d’un long voyage, par M. Georges Nielson.

Splitting his illustration work between imaginative worlds (Magiciens at Casterman Jeunesse; texts by Pierre Bottero, Marie-Aude Murail…) and more encyclopedic research for concept design in animation, cinema and video games, he eventually brought these approaches together by illustrating The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling — a fully personal project, not initially intended for publication.

Thanks to Olivier Souillé and the Daniel Maghen gallery, the book was finally published by Caurette Editions, with whom Armel has developed several projects, including the BESTiary, in the spirit of J. J. Grandville’s drawings. He then turned towards H. P. Lovecraft’s fantastic literature with the “Carnets Lovecraft” collection at Bragelonne, and worked on ancient texts for the centenary collection of publisher Les Belles Lettres. He teaches classical drawing at the École Méliès and, since early 2019, has been part of the Superani collective founded by Hyunjin Kim and Kim Jung Gi. His current projects include design work for a comic book with Fred Blanchard, creature design for a fantasy feature film, new volumes in the Lovecraft collection, a forthcoming book with Caurette, and the early stages of an original comic book.