Victoria Francés

Victoria Francés (born October 25, 1982) is a Spanish illustrator.

Francés was born in Valencia on October 25, 1982, though she spent part of her childhood in Galicia. Later on, she returned to her hometown to earn her degree from the San Carlos School of Fine Arts, at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

The first volume of the Favole trilogy (Norma Editorial, 2004) was her first illustrated work to be published. Manifested throughout the entirety of the Favole trilogy (2004–07) are themes emerging from Dark Romanticism, highly influenced by both the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and well-known works of Gothic art. Her work received a number of awards and achieved great success in countries where it was published.

Consequently, the American publishing house Dark Horse became interested in her work, and Francés has since then been published in North America, thus allowing her to increase her fan base. She made herself known at the XXII Barcelona Comic Convention, where she made her first public appearance and earned the respect of renowned authors. Calendars featuring her artwork, as well as other promotional merchandise such as posters, puzzles, tarot cards and stationery products have been made available to the public for purchase.

Despite the current effervescent nature of the Gothic movement, Francés decided to experiment with different themes, and in 2007 the course of her artistic career took another direction with the publication of Arlene’s Heart (El Corazón de Arlene) by Planeta DeAgostini. Within the pages of this book, the author mixes dreams with social reality.

In 2009, she reveals yet another change in her artistic register with the publication of the first volume in her Misty Circus series (Norma Editorial), an original collection of books based on the decadent world of the travelling circus, written especially for a younger audience. Near the end of that same year, Dark Sanctuary was also published (Astiberri Ediciones), written in collaboration with Dark Sanctuary, a “Dark Atmospheric” band from France. The project, a fusion between music and illustration, aimed to reflect the poignant beauty of the shadows.

The second volume in the Misty Circus series is entitled The Night of the Witches (La Noche de las Brujas), published by Norma Editorial in 2010. The continuation of the story takes place on the night of Samhain, an ancestral celebration in the pagan culture.

In 2011, the Favole trilogy was re-edited in order to create one single volume entitled Integral Favole (Norma Editorial), a compilation of the three books in addition to unpublished sketches and illustrations specially included in this edition. A year later, in 2012, Ocean Lament (El Lamento del Océano) was published, in which the author features a listless, spectral mermaid as the main protagonist.

While working on her upcoming books, Francés was also busy creating individual licensed images for her merchandise, undertaking commissioned work and collaborating with other artists through various illustrations. One of the most noteworthy of these collaborative projects was the illustration “Hekate” which was specially made for the album entitled “Luna” for the German Pagan Folk band, Faun, and the full artwork for a new cd project entitled "Naked Harp" of the Pagan Folk band, Omnia.

At the end of 2014, Francés presented her new project called MandrakMoors, in collaboration with the South Korean bjd doll company, Fairyland. For this project, the author set out to combine both the work of new character design, specifically of characters related to the world of witchcraft and pagan traditions, with the subsequent creation of bjd dolls, in partnership with FairyLand.

Francés is currently completing her first piece for MandrakMoors. The protagonist is Sionna Fómhar, the first character and bjd doll in the MandrakMoors universe.

This work was scheduled to be released at the end of 2015.

Francés and her popular style are inspired by the Gothic movement, and her work is considered a model to follow in terms of illustration within this genre: ghostly women wearing long dresses with vampirical attributes. Her illustrations tend to depict solitary characters, young women or couples in a romantic or melancholic atmosphere. She is influenced by a number of writers including Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Rice, Goethe, Baudelaire, Bram Stoker, as well as illustrators such as Brian Froud, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac or Luis Royo and bands like Dark Sanctuary, whom she worked with in 2009.

Likewise, a remarkable change in register can be observed in her work, as in Misty Circus or MandrakMoors, in which the author uses a style that may be considered less realistic and which is aimed at a much wider audience. Nonetheless, she maintains the essence of her work as a whole or the melancholy which endures in all her creations.