Didier Graffet, French Steampunk Illustrator

Didier Graffet, born 1970, is a French painter/illustrator specializing in Steampunk and fantasy subjects.   Some background regarding him is here.

As best I can tell, most artists of that genre nowadays produce digital images.  Graffet, however, seems to have mostly or entirely painted using acrylics.  That is more laborious than digital, given the amount and type of detail he uses.  But the result is something tangible that can be sold for a good price, if auction values for some of his works are any clue.

Below are examples of his paintings found on the Internet.

Gallery

Angel City
First, to place Graffet's work in context, a fine example of digital Steampunk art by the well-known Stephan Martinière.

A New York City fantasy by Graffet.  He compresses Broadway, showing the 23rd Street's Flatiron Building (slightly altered) in the middle ground and Times Square closer in.

Detail of the previous image.  The Paramount Theatre at the right is in the same spirit as the actual Paramount of the late 1920s.  The nearest southbound car is a Jaray-type streamlined Maybach of 1935.  Other cars seem to be Graffet's inventions, as is the double deck bus at the left. 

A country scene with castles in the background and Viking-type ships approaching us.

Graffet used that vehicle's shape in several of his paintings.

Here one is at a loading platform.  The people on the balcony are dressed in circa-1920 fashion.

Trafalgar Celebration
Trafalgar Square, London.  HMS Victory sits by Nelson's monument while a huge dirigible loiters overhead.  The people are dressed as in the 1890s.

Métro Gare du Nord
The train station for points north of Paris.  The façade is there, but far, far above street level.  The sign fragment at the upper left advertises trains for London.

Le Tour
Eiffel Tower as seen from across the Seine.  Some of the airships are steam powered, highly unlikely in reality, but found in Steampunk illustrations by other artists.

The Gray Steampunk World of Vadim Voitekhovitch

Vadim Voitekhovitch, painter of gray, gloomy-atmosphere, northern European Steampunk scenes was born and raised in Belarus and has been working in Germany since 2004. And that's about all I know about personal details from a short Google search.

I find most of his images fascinating because he creates an almost-believable world of circa-1900 European cities and towns where airships and other never-quite-happened contraptions abound. Besides his attention to detail, Voitekhovitch gives his scenes believable atmospherics. Northern Europe is gloomy a good part of the year, after all.

Gallery

Fleet at Sea
The coal-fired warships are similar to 1890s French cuirassés designs such as the Masséna, featuring extreme tumble-home sides and ram bows. The airships also seem to have coal-fired steam engines: note the dark smoke from their stacks.

In a Distant Country
Harbor scene.  I like the rust on the battleship -- it makes the scene more believable.

No One Will Come Back
Setting off to war, though the people seem indifferent aside from the woman near the cannon and another with her young son near the stairway.

Old Harbour
Details include what might be a steam-powered omnibus and an airship "carrier."

Postal Dragon
Loading mail aboard from the rickety tower.

Stolen Sky

The Road to Babylon
Two scenes with airships, while the rest of the technology is pre-automobile.

Tide
The nearest airship is attached to a loading platform.

Gloomy Morning
Again, no cars.

Closeup of a Voitekhovitch airship.  Note the rust on the sides and what looks to be a royal or national crest on the rudder.  Clearly, his airships are impossible from an engineering standpoint.  The rust implies steel cladding -- very heavy.  They are powered by steam, often from coal-fired boilers.  Steam engines, boilers and filled coal bins are very heavy too.  Finally the size of the steel-clad "air bag" is much too small to house enough hydrogen to lift all that weight.  But I can easily ignore such matters because the world he has created is so enchanting for a history and design buff such as me.