Melchior van Rijn Illustrations

About artist and illustrator Melchior van Rijn

- a short biography -

I was born in The Netherlands in 1973 and I grew up near the seaside. I spent most of my early youth at the beach, swimming in the sea and playing in the dunes. And when my parents weren’t dragging me around some museum, I was at home, drawing monsters and castles. Or reading comic books. Until all of a sudden I had to learn a trade.
First I decided to work on my theory. So I studied history of art at the University of Leiden. That resulted in a nice academic title (I may now officially call myself ‘Master of Arts’…). But it also made me aware that the need to create art myself was much greater than the urge to study it… The thing that held me back then (as it had done so many times before) was the fear of leaving the intimacy of my drawing board and presenting myself – and my art – to the big, bad world… A surplus of self criticism didn’t help much (it does tend to improve your drawing skills though).

So, assuming this silly preoccupation of becoming an artist for a living was just a passing phase, I started out my working life as an editor while studying law at night. Not that I was not any good at it. But the pencils and brushes kept on calling me. Meanwhile I got married and we got two of the most wonderful little kids.
And then, with a lot of support from friends and especially my wife, it finally became clear to me that the only right path for me was the path that I was apparently supposed to follow. It made sense to me that there is some sort of obligation, if you will, to pursue and develop a given talent. So, in 2007 I gave in and started out an uncertain career as an independent illustrator. Perhaps I did not take the most direct route to my destination, but a little detour got me there eventually. And a detour around the countryside will often be much more interesting and yield much more experience than a fast ride using the highway.

I’m often called a fantasy-artist. That makes sense I guess, because since 2007 I’ve been quite active in the Dutch fantasy community. I make fantasy book covers, and my work is published in the dutch fantasy magazine ‘ Pure Fantasy’ on a regular basis. I also present my work at a lot of fantasy fairs and other events. However I do more than fantasy alone. I design logo’s, create cartoons and make illustrations for children’s books. I also do some game design - recently I’ve designed and illustrated the board game ‘ Kraków 1325 AD’.