Paris-based illustrator, Quentin Gomzé’s work is nostalgic of his childhood, heavily inspired by Anime, Manga and video games. His work seamlessly blends together a new-age futuristic cyber style with a traditional Japanese comic design. Outside of comic books and video games, his colourful hand drawn illustrations are also inspired by music like drum ’n’ bass or what he calls ‘furistic sounds’.

How would you describe yourself and what you do?
I am an independent illustrator and graphic designer based in Paris. I mainly use felt pens and paper as hand drawing is my main focus in art but I sometimes also make some 3D works and animations.
I am really into video games, I have a huge collection of toys and Japanese model kit, I watch loads of anime - I basically gather all the main features from what we usually call a good nerd.

How would you define your aesthetic? Which artists or movements have influenced its foundation?
I don't really have any specific term in mind to define my style. Artists such as Skinner, Will Sweeney, Jack Kirby or Phillipe Druillet have been considerable influences for me. The way they use flashy colors and they blend them with black and stuff… But I was bad at painting and digital drawing so I decided to try felt pens for the first time 3 or 4 years ago and I realized that I really enjoyed it - that much that it became a bit therapeutic for me in fact.

Video games also have strong repercussions on my work; I played with the Megadrive for a long time as a child and it was a blast. It was more about the airbrushed illustrations than the game itself because it was so damn hard. My favourite things to look at were shoot ’em up manuals and the character selection screen from fighting games. I think my drawings are pure fanart, very nostalgic, I like to pick stuff that affected me emotionally and transpose them into something more brutal, chaotic.

Your work works a lot in an Asian futuristic style. How did you fall into this specific style of illustration?
Asian culture was super popular in France in the late 90s during my childhood so I was introduced to manga and anime really early. I hated French-Belgian comics like Spirou and was saved by Naruto and DBZ. When I grew up, I discovered all the crazy stuff I missed in the past and I was naturally attracted by cyber stuff like Gundam or Ghost in the Shell.

I love imagining things to escape my reality and sci-fi is good for that. The characters I draw often have some background story in my mind, or stats points, I have thoughts like “how far can this gun shoot?” or “what sounds can it make?” I’m still a big kid, it’s really fun. Another key influence is music of course, I really like drum’n’bass, early hardcore and futuristic sound stuff and the track I listen to always become the OST of the drawing, so sometimes I can listen to the same one all week.

What are you currently working on?
I tend to spread myself as I always get loads of ideas and I get a bit too excited about the different projects, so I need to focus first. I would love to create my own toy so I have been doing some research on this recently as it involves some techniques that I am not familiar with. Otherwise some music video project coming up, more drawings, and something that I cannot give you more details about at the moment because it is top secret.

How does 2020 look like for you?
It started in a vaguely sinister way but can I say wearing a chirurgical mask looks cool? At least it’s something positive. Anyway, I prefer to think about the big RX-78 1/1 scale Gundam that Japan will make for the Olympics games this summer. In terms of work, I want to do more narrative drawings, renew myself a bit, and learn more stuff. Will try to make this year a big step for me.