Magali Villeneuve (born 1980) is a French illustrator, freelance fantasy artist, and fantasy author. Her art has been used for official games and products set in many large fantasy universes and franchises, including Magic: The Gathering,

A Song of Ice and Fire ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the first volume, ''A Game of Thrones'', in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the ser ...

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

Warhammer Warhammer may refer to: * War hammer, a medieval weapon ''Warhammer'' franchise *''Warhammer'', a series of games and related media: ** ''Warhammer'' (game), a table-top fantasy miniature wargame, and origin of the franchise ** ''Warhammer Fanta ...

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

, and

Arkham Horror ''Arkham Horror'' is a cooperative adventure board game designed by Richard Launius, originally published in 1987 by Chaosium. The game is based on Chaosium's roleplaying game ''Call of Cthulhu'', which is set in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. L ...

Early life, education, and family

Villeneuve was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

, France in 1980. She did not attend school to be an artist; instead, she is completely

self-taught Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions). Overview Autodi ...

. Today, she lives in

Bruyères Bruyères () is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. The town built up around a castle built on a hill in the locality in the 6th century. It was the birthplace of Jean Lurçat, in 1892. History In World W ...

with her husband.

Career

Villeneuve began illustrating professionally in 2006. As she did not receive any formal artistic training, her first commissions were for book covers from small publishers. After reading Robert Jordan's

Wheel of Time The wheel of time or wheel of history (also known as '' Kalachakra'') is a concept found in several religious traditions and philosophies, notably religions of Indian origin such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, which regard time as cyclical ...

series, her "goals changed": she abandoned her ambition to work as a

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

animator in favor of fantasy illustrations. Discovering one day in a library that

Fantasy Flight Games Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) is a game developer based in Roseville, Minnesota, United States, that creates and publishes role-playing game, role-playing, board game, board, card game, card, and dice game, dice games. As of 2014, it is a division of ...

published a book of

illustrations, she sent her portfolio to the company, netting her her first commission from the American game company. From this partnership, she worked on illustrations for a number of different trading card games,

board games A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

, and

role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, eith ...

set in several different

fantasy world A fantasy world or fictional world is a world created for fictional media, such as literature, film or games. Typical fantasy worlds feature magical abilities. Some worlds may be a parallel world connected to Earth via magical portals or items ...

s. In 2012, after several years of experience illustrating card games for Fantasy Flight Games, Villeneuve began contributing illustrations to

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (WotC or Wizards) is an American game Publishing, publisher, most of which are based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science-fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail game stores. In 1999, toy ...

for Magic: The Gathering cards. She has since gone on to work with several other publishing and video game companies, including

Cygames is a Japanese video game development studio established in 2011 by CyberAgent. Mobile and e-commerce company DeNA acquired a 24% stake in the studio in 2012, and Nintendo acquired another 5% stake in 2018, leaving CyberAgent with 69% of the sha ...

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

, Del Rey, and

Titan Publishing Group Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of the British entertainment company Titan Entertainment, which was established as Titan Books in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinem ...

, for which she produced illustrations for

. Villeneuve has created two art covers for ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'' sourcebooks: ''

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica ''Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica'' is a sourcebook that details the ''Ravnica'' campaign setting for the 5th edition of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game published in November 2018. The world of Ravnica was originally created ...

'' (2018) and ''

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything ''Tasha's Cauldron of Everything'' is a sourcebook for the Editions of Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game, published in 2020. The book is a supplement to the 5th edition ''Dungeon Master's Gui ...

'' (2020). Although she originally painted her pieces, such as her book covers, Villeneuve has since transitioned to work completely digitally, stating that she "couldn't make it without a digital technique." Villeneuve is also the author of ''La Dernière Terre'' ("Line of Descent"), a series of

dark fantasy Dark fantasy, also called fantasy horror, is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporates disturbing and frightening themes. The term is ambiguously used to describe stories that combine horror fiction, horror ...

books.

References

External links

*
Villeneuve's art portfolio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Villeneuve, Magali 1980 births French women children's book illustrators French children's writers French children's book illustrators 21st-century French women writers French women children's writers French fantasy artists 21st-century French painters 21st-century French women painters Game artists Living people