Hello! I am Marianne Paulsen, a Norway based illustrator with a BA(Hons) in illustration and an MA in design, from the University of Lincoln, UK. I can usually be found carrying a cup of tea, with my feet on the ground, and my head in space. With a special love for character design and visual storytelling, I aim to communicate any message clearly and efficiently, whether it be a concept for a game or movie, or a children’s book. I enjoy brainstorming concepts with clients and other artists and discussing how to best represent these ideas in pictures. Lately I have mainly been working digitally, due to lack of space, but I am traditionally trained, meaning I have worked a lot in pencil and ink before picking up a tablet. I am also working on learning both oils and acrylics because I think there’s much to be learned by scaling up ones work. Due to corona, my career path has taken a detour, seeing as I am no longer living in England where all my contacts are. I am currently trying to build a new network here in Norway, focusing towards book-illustration and sending my portfolio to various publishing houses. I sent a digital portfolio last year, but nothing came of that so this year I’m sending a physical copy, in interesting packaging, in hopes they’ll be intrigued and get back to me. My dream job would be to work on comics, movies or video games, creating characters and environments. This past October I got a commission to design the visuals for someone’s DND character, based on the written description and nothing more. This was a fun challenge and it showed me I need to work more on interesting silhouettes that are easily recognisable. Since I graduated from university in 2020 I have been a part time freelancer/part time any other job, getting most of my projects through a Norwegian startup named Umble. Here I am illustrating a mobile game about a boy who is part sàmi, and his struggle to balance tradition and family with ambitions and a big-city-life. I have also done some promotional spot illustrations for this company. My inspiration comes from, nature, dreams, any light or mood that catches my attention, music, books, other artists who’s work I admire, and anything spooky. I have realised that a lot of my inspiration comes from the eerie feeling one experiences as a child when telling urban legends at sleepovers or my fear of the unknown when contemplating space and it’s endlessness. Often adding a darkness to my work. My love for humanoid alien species came from watching movies like “Splice” and “Signs”, with fairly simple designs and small alterations from the human form, it feels more unnerving when it’s almost human, but not quite. I enjoy both solar punk, and darker sci-fi and, like many others, I loved Arcane with its mix of dark and gritty, and light and clean designs with interesting, complex characters. In addition, where I like my aliens sleek, humanoid and unnerving, I love fantasy characters and mythological beings that are over the top, and this is something I hope to achieve in my art some day. Going forward I hope to angle my work towards a career in fantasy/sci-if art, as this is where my field of interest lies.