This French artist creates worlds of such epic scale they'll make your head spin
Looking at the work of French concept artist Paul Chadeisson produces a strange sensation – somewhere between awe and a mild vertigo from the sheer sense of scale. Massive spaceships, endless industrial complexes, megastructures next to which a human being is reduced to a barely visible dot. Over the years, Chadeisson has built a reputation as "the internet's premier artist of absurdly large ships" – and he wears that title proudly.
Chadeisson started out in 2006 on the French art forum Café Salé, drawing inspiration from artists like Sparth and Aleksi Briclot. His first professional gig was at Dontnod Entertainment, working on Remember Me. Then in 2013, he co-founded an independent game studio with friends and shipped the aerial shooter Strike Vector – an experience he describes as "one of the most challenging and exciting of his life." It was during that period that he mastered 3D modeling, which fundamentally transformed how he approaches his art.
Today his portfolio spans some of the biggest franchises in both film and games. On the screen side, he's contributed to Dune: Part Two, The Creator, Foundation, Blade Runner 2049, Love Death + Robots, and The Peripheral. On the gaming side, the list includes Cyberpunk 2077, Homeworld 3, Halo Infinite, Marathon, and Final Fantasy XV. Coming up, his work will appear in Dune: Part Three, the Blade Runner 2099 series, and the adaptation of Project Hail Mary.
Chadeisson's style is immediately recognizable – he creates what he calls "documentary from the future." Instead of typical heroic angles, he favors a "news footage" or "archival" perspective, as if his images are frames pulled from a report or historical chronicle of a civilization that never existed. The worlds he paints feel lived-in, with history and the wear of time baked into every surface.
His workflow is a hybrid of 2D and 3D techniques:
Sketching in Photoshop to establish composition and silhouettes
3D blocking and modeling in 3D-Coat, Moi3D, or Rhino for industrial hard-surface details
Environment assembly and animation in Blender
Rendering in Octane or Cycles with realistic lighting and atmosphere
Final compositing in Photoshop, adding textures and "grime" through photobashing
But it's his personal projects that have made him a legend. In 2023 he released the short film SOLSTICE - 5 – a mock-documentary about a planet humanity transformed into one endless automated factory. It racked up nearly 6 million views and holds a 7.8 on IMDb.
In February 2025, the follow-up arrived – SOLSTICE - 5: Forgotten Archives. The ten-minute film chronicles the history of a resource war between two superpowers, the Continental Alliance and the Coalition. Automated extraction and defense systems spiral out of control, igniting an "absurd" mechanical conflict that grinds on long after it stopped making any strategic sense. Nuclear fracking, oil-eating fungi, "metal titans" locked in methodical battle while helpless humans watch from the sidelines – and every frame delivers that same dizzying sense of scale.
Chadeisson plans to keep expanding the Solstice universe. Honestly, it already has everything it needs to become a stunning feature film or a game.
More of the artist's work can be found on ArtStation.
