La Mégalopole is the first book by Cléa Dieudonné published in France by L'Agrume in April 2015. It is a vertical story which has to be unfolded on more than 3m to get to the end. The reader follow the steps of an outer-space tourist in his journey through all the areas of the vast city. Through his eyes we discover many inhabitants and surprises.

At the very beginning I brought one test illustration, a vague idea of story and a little folded paper to explain my idea to my publishers. It still sounds crazy to me but they said yes. Then I spent 8 months to build my imaginary city, it's a collage between different cities and architecture type. It's also injected with some fantastic elements but always close to the real world. Like having a giant volcano in the city, and make festive eruption with it. My publishers adviced me that the story is more magical when it is almost real, it makes it more powerful and give it a stronger sense of wonder happening. Everything is normal at the beginning, except the hero is an alien, which is sound totally normal. By the way he wears sneakers, not boots.
-Cléa Dieudonné

The book is a weird leporello, I wanted to have a long panoramic view of a city but without cutting it into different pages. And on a leporello the back of the paper is useless. So by folding it in another way the back is used for the text and everytime we unfold the book the text change and we discover a new part of the panorama. The hero appears again on each unfolded part, so you can see him many time on the complete image.
-Cléa Dieudonné

 

The inspiration of the book comes from two main influence. The old french animated movie "le roi et l'oiseau", which is such a beauty, beautifully written by the french poet Jacques Prevert, (directed by Paul Grimault). The narration starts at the top of a gigantic city and the hot pursuit leads all the characters to the ground level. And the city is really different at the top and at the bottom, there are some crazy castle where the king live and dark and poor at the ground floor. So I kept this system of telling a story following the movement of a character. Everything happens because he walk to a new area of the city. The second influence is Hong Kong, I went there before starting the project, and I found something surreal in this tiny island packed with huge skyscrapers, with a little zoo and other surprises hidden in its narrow streets.
-Cléa Dieudonné

At the beginning I imagine this book having two parts, one on paper and one on tablet. I thought the best would be to use vector. And then after a quick technical test a friend told me I should use the minimum of curve because it's faster to process for computer. So I did exactly that, it was easy at the beginning to draw buildings with a minimum amount of curve. Then I reached a point I had to draw something organic: a tree. I tested the straight line style : I had a awkward weird tree. And I looked at it for a while, struggling with the idea it was badly done and fun at the same time, and finally I went for it. I drew many weird trees and reached the second big problem: the characters. And I did the same, and it's the way I draw everything now! The straight line style reminds me a bit cutout papers.
-Cléa Dieudonné

The artists who inspire me those days are the one who work with colors. I'm inlove with landscape of Felix Valloton. But also the illustration of Laurent Moreau, and the old czech matchbox of solo lipnik (it's the factory not the dude). I'm obsess with colors!
-Cléa Dieudonné

About advice I don't feel legit to give any advice, but the lesson I'm learning now is that it's hard to focus on one illustration style, to create your own style. But I feel it make a richer result to deal with a same style in depth, stick with it for several projects make it getting more and more interesting.
-Cléa Dieudonné

About Cléa Dieudonné

Cléa Dieudonné is a french illustrator & storyteller. She creates architectural worlds full of details and wonders made with straight lines. Graduated in Ecole Estienne and Gobelins in graphic design in Paris, she started to work in Amsterdam as a digital designer for more than two years. Now, she lives and works in Berlin as an independent illustrator sharing her time between commissioned works and the creation of printed and digital children books. See more of her works on Behance or her website.