In recent years there are few artists whose new work I pop for quite like the art of Swedish illustrator, Kilian Eng. Eng's work is instantly recognizable for its flat picture planes, its instant sense of immensity and its staggeringly ornate level of detail in every aspect.
Eng is a person of few words online. His influences are pretty clear just from observing his work but I think it does a disservice to simply look at his work and say: another illustrator heavily inspired by the works of Moebius. Few artists are able to achieve the effect that Eng has. There is obvious attention paid to broad shapes and what that will do to a composition, but within those broad shapes is a density of detail that somehow flattens entirely into the greater shape. The effect allows you to appreciate an illustration on a broad scale, become intrigued enough to get closer and then be utterly floored by just how much you're looking at.
Ultimately it isn't just that I am impressed by scale and density. I was an abstract painter for years and little of that comes out in the designs I create, I don't think. Killian has managed to infuse all of his designs with a level of abstraction that I truly admire, not only because it makes creatures, vehicles and architecture look unique and ornate, but also because it gives them a shape language that could not exist otherwise, made possible by the picture plane effect that Killian makes such liberal use of: flat, perpendicularly viewed planes overlaid like a paper diorama you are gazing into.
Killian's work goes on sale in limited edition prints from Black Dragon Press and sells out very quickly. I have been wanting to pull the trigger on one of his prints for years, but have always struggled justifying shelling out the $200+ USD for the large-format prints I want so badly of his work.