By Creative Bloq Staff
Originally published in ImagineFX
Main Facts: The Mind and Method of a Fantasy Master
In the realm of modern commercial fantasy illustration, few artists capture the ethereal, timeless quality of classic literature quite like Bente Schlick. Renowned for her breathtaking book covers and immersive visual storytelling, Schlick has carved out a distinct niche in the international art community. Working primarily in Adobe Photoshop utilizing a Wacom drawing tablet, she bridges the gap between traditional aesthetics and modern digital workflows.
Yet, what separates Schlick from many of her contemporaries is her staunchly anti-dogmatic approach to creation. Rather than relying on rigid, highly calculated blueprints, storyboards, or meticulous initial line art, Schlick champions a philosophy of pure spontaneity and emotional resonance. Drawing deep inspiration from the grand old masters of fine art—such as J.M.W. Turner, John William Waterhouse, and Rembrandt—alongside the graphic-meets-realism elegance of Alphonse Mucha, Schlick treats her digital canvas as a living, breathing space where chaos and intuition reign supreme.
This deep dive into Schlick’s creative psyche explores not only how she navigates professional commissions, but also the step-by-step breakdown of how she brings her hauntingly beautiful fantasy worlds to life.
Chronology: From Blank Screen to Breathtaking Book Cover
Schlick’s artistic evolution does not follow a linear checklist. Instead, it is an organic journey of accumulation and subtraction. She maps out her creative pipeline across four distinct, fluid stages, proving that digital art can possess just as much organic soul as traditional oil on canvas.
01. Selecting Colours: Laying the Emotional Foundation
For Schlick, the journey begins not with a sketch of a face or a structural outline of a body, but with mood. Because her artworks often feature a deliberately restricted and cohesive colour palette, she starts by choosing two primary anchor colours for her main characters and central animals, paired with two complementary shades for the background.
From these foundational hues, she begins mixing and pulling different tonal variations without ever straying too far from the core palette. By establishing warm and cool colour contrasts right from the opening moments, she injects a vital, atmospheric tension into the piece before a single detail is defined.
02. Establishing the Poses and Dynamic
Once the atmospheric temperature of the piece is set, Schlick shifts her focus to narrative interaction. In this phase, she works on grounding the poses, defining the dynamic flow between figures, mapping out eyelines, and capturing micro-expressions.
Crucially, this is also when the environment begins to materialize. Rather than designing a backdrop to fit a pre-determined narrative box, Schlick lets the environment grow organically around the characters’ postures and psychological states.
03. Fine-Tuning the Details: The Reverse Workflow
While many digital illustrators swear by a strict pipeline of pristine line art followed by flat coloring and rendering, Schlick turns this convention on its head. She often delays heavy line work until the mid-to-late stages of the piece.
Because her compositions evolve dynamically while she paints, she finds that locking down tight outlines too early can stifle spontaneity. By establishing colors and mood first, the line work serves as a refinement tool rather than a restrictive cage.
04. Almost Final: Subverting Digital Perfection with Traditional Textures
In the final stretch of her process, Schlick introduces layers of high-detail polish. However, her signature touch comes at the very end of the digital pipeline: she gradually reduces the prominence of her line work, allowing the underlying painting to push through and take center stage.
To combat the clinical, sterile perfection that can sometimes plague digital art, Schlick utilizes a clever textural trick. She overlays scanned traditional watercolour paper onto her digital layers, granting the final high-resolution image a tactile, organic, and deeply traditional feel that tricks the eye into seeing physical media.
Supporting Data: The Digital Artist’s Toolkit
Schlick’s workflow relies on industry-standard hardware and software combinations that have become the gold standard for professional concept artists and illustrators worldwide.
- Software: Adobe Photoshop remains her digital ecosystem of choice, valued for its robust brush engine, blending modes, and non-destructive layering capabilities.
- Hardware: A professional-grade Wacom drawing tablet provides the pressure sensitivity and tactile feedback required to mimic traditional brushstrokes on a glass screen.
- Textural Integration: High-resolution scans of organic materials—specifically watercolour paper—are frequently integrated as overlay blend modes to bridge the gap between digital efficiency and traditional aesthetics.
For artists inspired by Schlick’s workflow, the market offers an array of professional drawing tablets (ranging from pen displays to graphics tablets) and digital art suites that cater to every tier of creative ambition, making digital painting more accessible than ever before.
Official Perspectives: Bente Schlick on Creative Doubt and Escapism
To understand Schlick’s art, one must understand her mental state while creating. In candid reflections on her day-to-day workflow, the illustrator admits that overthinking is the absolute enemy of her creative output.
"I don’t have a plan in my head for what I want to create. I have ideas. At some point I just start, and I’m looking at references and stuff, and then doing a little sketch and I’ll start with the colours," Schlick explains.
This leap-first mentality requires a deep sense of trust in one’s own subconscious. Schlick notes that active, hyper-conscious thought often paralyzes her ability to execute.
"I’m not thinking too much when I start. I’m just doing it. If I’m thinking too much, then I can’t work. My head is like somewhere else when I’m painting: it’s escaped to work on fantasy images."
Perhaps most refreshing for aspiring artists struggling with imposter syndrome is Schlick’s brutally honest assessment of her own finished pieces. Perfectionism, she notes, is rarely the mark of an artist’s satisfaction.
"Maybe I’ll like the image and I finish it, or maybe I won’t like it and I will put it aside. I don’t think I ever like my work when it’s finished."
This perpetual pursuit of the elusive ideal is precisely what drives her to continually push the boundaries of her craft, treating each completed book cover not as a masterpiece, but as a single stepping stone in an ongoing artistic journey.
Implications: What Schlick’s Process Teaches the Next Generation of Illustrators
Bente Schlick’s workflow carries profound implications for the broader design, gaming, and publishing industries, especially in an era increasingly dominated by procedural generation and Artificial Intelligence.
As digital art tools become faster and more automated, the temptation for artists is to over-plan, over-render, and sanitize their creative output to meet rigid commercial demands. Schlick’s methodology serves as a powerful reminder of the irreplaceable value of human intuition, happy accidents, and emotional resonance. By allowing paintings to evolve organically rather than adhering strictly to a rigid formula, she preserves the raw, atmospheric magic that clients and readers crave in fantasy literature.
Furthermore, her seamless blending of digital efficiency (Photoshop, Wacom tablets) with analog soul (scanned watercolour paper textures) points the way forward for hybrid artists. It proves that technology and tradition do not need to be mutually exclusive; rather, when wielded by a thoughtful hand, digital tools can be bent to serve deeply human, artistic impulses.
For creators looking to refine their own digital workflows—whether designing video game environments, concept art, or epic fantasy book covers—Schlick’s approach offers a liberating challenge: drop the blueprint, trust the colours, and let the canvas speak for itself.
To explore more of Bente Schlick’s enchanting portfolio, visit her official website.
