Benjamín Lacombe is an illustrator who has born on 12th July 1982 in Paris where he is living and working currently.
I think that his illustrations are very sweets, but elegants at the same time. They transmit fragility and melancholy.
At 2001 he joined to the Decorative Art National School and in his 19 he published his first comic.
At 2007 Benjamin was converted in a young celebrity in the editorial world due to the nomination of the important magazine Timeque which put Cherry and Olive inside of the 10 best books for children of that year.
Since that moment, it wrote and illustrated a lot of books which were about different topics as: infancy, melancholy and the difference. To do it, he has used some techniques as gouache, pencil and pencil sketch, watercolor and oil paint.
Between its inspiration sources, you can find Pre-Raphaelite, Italian Quattrocento, primitive Flemish, and contemporary artists as: Tod Broning and its “monster” world, Tim Burton, Fritz Lang and its film “Metropolis”, Ray Harryhausen, David LaChapelle or Diane Arbus. His personal and social environment are also a part of his inspiration.
Even the most part of the Lacombe productions are near of young sector, he has also published illustrated books for adults including a new version of “Macabre Tales” of Edgar Allan Poe, and also with the story of “Notre-Dame of Paris” with all the text of Victor Hugo.
Currently I have some books which his illustrations: Snow White, Ondina, The Herbarium of the Fairies, The Silence Girl, The Buttlerfly Lovers, Macabre Tales…