Some details...

...of current jobs.

A cute rodent

Two versions of a morbid rat I made for a new project (that I'm not allowed to talk about... how mysterious hehe) Or click here!

Opolus Corsar A

I did that sketch on the train yesterday when I was on my way back home from the cinema. As you can guess I watched Transformers yesterday - for the second time and together with my dad. And I have to say, that movie becomes better and better the more often you watch it. There are so many details and hidden jokes you can't notice at the first view.
So once again I felt like bein ten again and had to draw a Transformers immediately.

This is my old Opel Corsa tranformed into the Autobot Opolus Corsar A! Maybe I'll color it when I have time.

Many a mickle makes a muckle!

Here are some photoshop colored drawings I did recently.
Actually I work the most of my time for that calender-project, that's why I do not post new stuff every day. Ok, I keep tabs on different great illustrator's blogs and non of them show something new every single day - so no reason for me to feel like a lazy dog! By the way: Check out Marco Vignali's Blog Vignali Studio! He works for the Disney and Sony Pictures Studios (that is my dream job since I was 6 years old) and his work is gorgeous!

After this link to a real high-end artist... here comes my ignoble work!

Some cool American style characters: An old trucker, and a heroic astronaut (and I unfortunately guess they voted for George...)


 


For fun I composed an advertisement for my fave beer 5,0 Original: It's the cheapest beer around, only available in a can and above all: It received several design-awards. Ok, I think that's a crap advertisement, cos it really has nothing to do with the beer, but maybe that's the clue! You are attentive cos of that eyecatcher, the girl, while your subconcious also notices that blurred 5,0 in the background! That's perfect! That's great! And I know why I studied illustration and NOT grafic design ;P But that girl is hot, eh?



And the contrast programme: this illustration I did for a new job application lately. The "Hamburger Pensionsverwaltung e.G." asked me for working together with them on their different publications in print media and online appearences.
Well, "many a mickle makes a muckle!"

Model making

Due to my new hobby I haven't blog anything for one and a half weeks now. I just don't have any more time to sketch or draw.
I'm very into building minitaures at the moment. My whole room is filled with tables, craft materials, and little minitaure trees and houses that I need for my miniature landscapes. And even though I have never been very interested in modelling, I'm very happy with my first results. I took some photos. Have a look!

A scene from the zoo (a seal basin or something)


I'm very proud of this miniature of my hometown Bochum with the characteristic shaft tower of the German's Mining Museum. There's me in background!


A miniature of the Old Town of Blankenstein.


And the Old Town of Volterra in Italy.


And in the end a very cool miniature of an old Latin ruin, that you also can find in Voletrra.


Ok, BRUHAHAHA, cool, eh? Of course I didn't start building miniatures. When you click on the pics above you find the original photography right next to the "miniature". I faked them with Photoshop after coming across this tutorial. I don't have the new Photoshop version, so I wasn't able to use that "Len's Blur" effect and had to do the blurring by hand. But it's so easy to trick the human eye, just blurring the fore- and the background and playing around with contrast and colours and the photo looks like a snapshot from a model railway. A great optical illusion! That manipulated pictures are called "tilt shift-fakes" or "fake model photography" and this flickr photo pool is definitely worth a visit.

I went shopping today

I noticed that we needed a new package of toilet paper when I dozily sat on the toilet this morning. After cursing my flatmates and using our security tissues I headed for the next supermarket called "Plus". I also wanted to buy new toothpast, a sixpack of water and - oh yeah, nearly forgot my first published specialized book for kids about history. "Wissen schnell und kompakt - Geschichte" (knowledge fast and compact - history :) was presented between different rummage tables full of unhip underwear, cheap socks and new stylish tupperware pots. I was enthusiastic tho! I was in the act of buying toilet paper!!! And I bought that book for 3,99 € too :)
   

 I do not have anything to do with the titel! And these are just a couple of the pages that I illustrated.

By the slightly sarcastical report on the top you can tell that I don't brim over with enthusiasm for that book. And that's not cos the book is sold at a supermarket - I think that many more people will buy it displayed in a supermarket than between thirty other specialized books in a book store. And I am even positively suprised by the layout of the book. The problem is that I don't like my illustrations any more. The coloration is boring, the characters are not very dynamic... I could do better.
But I don't want to go down in self-criticism, even if that's the artist's engine. I don't want to seem like that stupid nerdy girls at school that cried cos of an 2 (B) in their math test.
I wanna say, I had to do sixty illustrations in four weeks, so I had no chance to work on one single illustration until being comfortable with it. I made some good and fast money with it and that's the main thing at the moment!