Working with a mix of Photoshop and Illustrator, German illustrator Max Guther creates collaged worlds where walls fall open, roofs tilt towards you, and people somehow feel less real than their surroundings.
This illustration series, titled The Goodlife, explores “the balance between work, relaxation and social environment.” These are themes that appear throughout much of Guther’s digital illustration, which tends to focus on architectural details, interiors, and how the human body interacts with the environment around it.
It’s not just the digital nature of Guther’s illustrations that makes them feel slightly unreal—the artist’s decision to depict most of his scenes via isometric projection adds to the sense that you’re observing life-like video game characters. Frequently used to create technical and engineering drawings, isometric projection is a method of realistically depicting three-dimensional objects. This technique lends a further sense of unreality to Guther’s work. It’s easy to see how his illustrations could draw comparisons to The Sims.
Although Guther cites video games as partly responsible for inspiring his unique aesthetic, he’s primarily influenced by architecture. “My fascination for this point of view is mainly derived from the isometric representations of Bauhaus architects and designers such as Walter Gropius and Herbert Bayer,” Guther told Form.
Find more of Max Guther’s illustration work at his portfolio.
More digital art to see:
Pretend It’s Always Summer in Tishk Barzanji’s Digital Paradise
100% CGI Nostalgic Objects That Look Like Photographs
5 Digital Artists Who Are Painting with Pixels
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