Let’s Collab!
This clip was Originally thought to be used at the Frankfurter Buchmesse but actually became a short and nice standalone clip showcasing the diverse spectrum of kombinatrotweiss’ illutrators and linking to our group-project called “Let’s Collab!”. Of course it’s just a glimpse into the amazing work my fellow illustrators have to show.
I had just about two days to do it, so from the beginning it was clear that I will have to reduce and focus on few elements in this animation. As I was trying out a new character rigging and a totally new mouth-rig, I was eager to try it out in this project.
Svetlana Jakel @kombinatrotweiss did the voice recording herself and Christoph von Chamier did the music and sound design. The rigging worked very well and it was nice to see, that in a relatively short amount of time it was possible for me to provide lip-synced animation. I was also very glad, that Svetlana liked my character design of herself, as I often find this to be the hardest part.
client: kombinatrotweiss illustration
voice over: Svetlana Jakel
music and sound design: Christoph von Chamier
This clip was Originally thought to be used at the Frankfurter Buchmesse but actually became a short and nice standalone clip showcasing the diverse spectrum of kombinatrotweiss’ illutrators and linking to our group-project called “Let’s Collab!”. Of course it’s just a glimpse into the amazing work my fellow illustrators have to show.
I had just about two days to do it, so from the beginning it was clear that I will have to reduce and focus on few elements in this animation. As I was trying out a new character rigging and a totally new mouth-rig, I was eager to try it out in this project.
Svetlana Jakel @kombinatrotweiss did the voice recording herself and Christoph von Chamier did the music and sound design. The rigging worked very well and it was nice to see, that in a relatively short amount of time it was possible for me to provide lip-synced animation. I was also very glad, that Svetlana liked my character design of herself, as I often find this to be the hardest part.
client: kombinatrotweiss illustration
voice over: Svetlana Jakel
music and sound design: Christoph von Chamier
Rock Trust is an Edinburgh based organiziation fighting youth homelessness in a very active and creative way.
Bi-annually they organize an art exhibition showcasing donated artwork on postcards they send out to selected artists.
For over ten years now I was happy to regularly participate and provide additional artwork for some of their events. This years topic was “untold”, and I decided I wanted to make a three colour woodcut.
I had been sketching a lot with color pencils in the past couple of weeks mostly using three colors: blue, red and turquoise. I liked the roughness of the drawings and wanted to transport it to the woodprint, so my thought was that using three plates would add some imprecision. I could also use the overlap of colors, something that normally isn’t possible in the “lost cut” technique I normally use.
Even though it was more actual cutting than normally I am very happy with the outcome. I used lino printing colors instead te oil based colors which I normally use and for this motif I love the “dusty” look the paint has on the paper.
I documented the whole creative process and cut it down to a qick minute tutorial:
Vistas 6 & Senderos & Get Ready!
Nearly four years ago I got a request from Vista Higher Learning, Boston, for illustrations for a new edition of one of their schoolbooks. I wasn’t the only artist requested, so we did a pitch, starting with two spreads. Soon I realized how difficult it is to place so many elements and keep an eye on headlines, textboxes and gutter…
The publisher chose me, but before we started with the main project I was assigned with one spread for a new issue of “Senderos”.
For “Vistas 6” I provided in total 16 spreads and 33 smaller (but sometimes pretty extensive) Illustrations. One nice detail in the briefing was the task to put in some more or less obvious joke in each spread. For the following 8 months I was pretty busy doing sketches, revisions, vector versions, and finals.
Half a year after finishing the last of the Vistas illustration Slavi contacted me again. This time it was about “Get Ready!”, a schoolbook for middle and high school Newcomer English Language Learners. This time I provided ten spreads, one for each chapter of the book. Jokes had to be included again, so this time somehow the ducks took over….
The production of “Get Ready!” nearly overtook the production of “Vistas”, so I received both copies together.
The thought that thousands of people are now learning english or spanish looking at my illustrations is a very nice one:)
Vistas 6 & Senderos & Get Ready!
Vor fast vier Jahren wurde ich vom Vista Higher Learning Verlag aus Boston für Illustrationen für eine Neuauflage eines Schulbuches angefragt. Da neben mir noch andere Illustratoren angefragt waren, kam es zu einem Pitch, bei dem zwei Doppelseiten umgesetzt werden sollten. Schnell wurde klar, dass es gar nicht so einfach ist, so viele Begriffe und Elemente unter zu bringen, wenn man noch Textkästen, Überschriften und Seitenumbrüche beachten muss…
Der Verlag entschied sich für mich, bevor es aber mit dem eigentlichen Buchprojekt losgehen sollte wurde ich noch für eine einzelne Doppelseite für die Neuausgabe von “Senderos” eingesetzt. Für das eigentliche Schulbuch “Vistas 6” sollte ich insgesamt 16 Doppelseiten und 33 kleinere Illustrationen anfertigen. Ein schönes Detail im Briefing war, dass ich in jeder Doppelseite einen Witz verstecken sollte. Über die nächsten 8 Monate war ich konstant mit Entwürfen und Umsetzungen, diversen Änderungen und Korrekturen beschäftigt.
Schon ein halbes Jahr nach Abgabe der letzten “Vistas” Illu meldete sich Slavi erneut mit bei mir. Geplant war “Get Ready!”, ein Schulbuch für den Englisch-als-Fremdsprache Unterricht für die Middle und High School. Diesmal wurden nur 10 Dopelseiten benötigt, die waren aber dafür oft um so aufwändiger. Die Produktion von “Get Ready!” war sehr schnell und überholte fast die Produktion von “Vistas 6” so dass mir nun beide Belegexemplare zusammen geschickt wurden.
Der Gedanke, dass nun weltweit tausende von Menschen mit meinen Illustrationen Spanisch und Englisch lernen, ist ein sehr schöner:)
Client: Vista Higher Learning, Boston, USA
Art Direction: Radoslav Mateev
Get Ready!
Vistas 6th Edition
For 6 weeks I am showing a selection of woodprints in colognes neat and lovely Café Gloria!
The Café is part of the well known “Gloria Theater” a cultural hotspot in colognes vibrant art-scene.
Though it was pretty difficult to display the prints (no nails, no screws, just nylon cord) I’m pretty happy how the prints look in this funny architecture.
Notice those light wells in the walls? There might be a small woodprint hidden inside the wall for eternity now… For future archeologists to baffle or just some contractor to throw away…;(
Big thanks go to Isabell for helping all around this small exhibition, and for Jan to make it a special day.
Gloria Theater
Apostelnstr. 11
D-50667 Köln
http://gloria-theater.com/cafe/
Longtime friend Maria thought of me, when she was pitching for a new project.
And everybody was happy with the style and look of my illustrations so we went on to design a new face for the whole operation, a character: Amira, Super PTA. A superhero watching over all those hard-working, lab-coat wearing humans. To this point it is not sure if the whole operation will be as altruistic as presented, but Amiras intent in any case is to do good. Hope she stays strong and will not be fooled by sinister allure.
As we already hit the spot during the pitching phase we could quickly move on and adapt her in some different poses. It looks as Amira will become a big project with the need for lots of artwork and animated clips. So watch out for this new superhero!
Client: Amira
Agency: Beziehungsweise
Website: www.amira-welt.de
Beginning of October I was contacted via my representatives by a swiss agency from St. Gallen, Yjoo.
They had a visually appealing and technically (at least for me) quite challenging project and wanted me to do the illustration and animation. The client, the Urner Kantonalbank was going for a strategy change and wanted to communicate this through an animated film.
The project kickoff was in november, and with an aim to have a first final version ready for december it was clear that the timing was tight. As the storyline had been provided by the agency and worked quite well i directly started with some character sketches and the storyboard. After a few drafts we agreed on the characters, style and storytelling and I went on with illustrating all characters, poses elements and background.
The challenge was to have a camera flight starting in a birdseye view of a map (of the Kanton Uri) and flying in and out of three different locations and scenes. Because this is no real 3D, rather 2.5 D I had to find a way to synchronically rotate all elements on the map according to the camera movement. This brought a hell of a lot of trouble with it: disappearing mountains, houses that jump over trees and all kinds of layer trouble. I never had a project with so many unexpected errors or bugs, and so many renders in between.
In the end, it all worked out of course. The client received a good version in time, and with a bit of extra time (two weeks) another version, (nearly) bug free, and with all the shadings and sructures I had in mind.
Oh, did I mention that it also quite complex to choreograph around 12 people in one scene…?
watch it here or click below.
Agency: Yjoo / Suisse
Creative Director: Jan Walser
Sound: BLOOP . SOUND AND MUSIC
Roland Roller Frei
www.bloop.ch
Client: Urner Kantonalbank
I love doing illustration with just one colour!
That’s actually how I started off with vector based illustration. So I was happy when I was assigned to do three illustration just in orange.
It was quite tricky to fullfill the clients wish to place a lot of products in the scene, but with the help of some quick 3d I finally found the right perspectives.
Client: Trinseo
Agency: Palmer Hargreaves, cologne
I regularly provide follow up illustrations of the main character I developed for La Viva Magazine.
I really like doing illustration of the same character, it really grows and becomes more and more a real person in my mind.
So here’s a short overview of what she was doing last year. Winter brought a lot of snow and which was great for a couple of days, but after that just was annoying. Snow in the city tends to turn to mud pretty quickly.
So, when finally springtime came Iva spent every free time for picknics and long bikerides in the first warm sunrays. Summer brought a lot of partying and enjoying the good sides of life.
When autumn came Ivas mood rapidly changed. She started to read news and that really dragged her down. What really drove her mad was, that besides all the political rubbish happening each day, it seems everybody capitulated over the threat of climate change. Sure, we know what we could and should do, but hardly anybody really changes his or her lifestyle.
Client: La Viva Magazine
Agency: Gruner & Jahr
I was asked to illustrate a short story about conception, pregnancy and what it does to you, when it is not happening that easily. Really liked the topic and how the story was told and had fun illustrating this .
Client: Exeltis
Agency: Strategas
I was asked by Zone in Bristol to do an animated film about a delicate topic: Bile Acid Diarrhoea!
The film tells the story of Lou, who tries to live her life but is constantly held back by her condition. But when Lou is diagnosed with Bile Acid Diarrhoea (also known as Bile Acid Malabsorption), she gains the power and knowledge to cut the chain of her condition and increase the quality of her life.
Fiona Allens voice was a perfect choice to deal with this sensible topic, delivered with a good sense of humour. The illustration are all vector based, as is the animation. Structures, brushes and effects were added late in the animation process.
https://www.abadstory.com
Agency: Zone
Creative Director: Matthew Pink
Client: GE Healthcare
Endlich, nach “nur” 9 Monaten Verzögerung ist unser neuer Truck und Koffer abholbereit!
Vor gut einem Jahr habe ich einen Mercedes Vario 615 D mit Doppelkabine als neuen fahrbahren Untersatz für unser Mobiles office und Surfmobil gekauftund einen Kofferaufbau dafür in Auftrag gegeben. Nach einem endlosen hin und her, unzähligen Verzögerungen und frustrierend schleppendem Fortschritt sollt edas Fahrzeug nun endlich, gerade mal 9 Monate verspätet fertig zur Abholung sein. Da die Produktionsstätte in Tschechien liegt stand also eine Reise bevor. Glücklicherweise sagte mein Freund Jan zu, mich auf dieser Reise zu begleiten.
Am Sonntag ging es los: Flug von Düsseldorf nach Prag, ganz problemlos. Mit dem Bus und Metro in die Innenstadt und dann direkt zu unserer Unterkunft, ein sehr nettes kleines Backpacker/Hostel mit stylischer Bar und guter Musik vom Plattenspieler. Gepäck abgeladen und dann direkt los, die Stadt anschauen und etwas Essen. Nach einem leckeren Essen und nettem Gespräch mit unserer Tischnachbarin schlenderten wir runter zu Moldau und fanden eine kleine Ausstellung von Architekturmodellen. Danach probierten wir noch ein paar Prager Süßigkeiten, die uns aber nicht besonders begeistern konnten. Noch ein Drink in der Bar, danach gings ins Bett.
Am nächsten Tag haben wir die Bahn nach Hradec Karlové mit kurzem Umstieg in Pardubice genommen. Alles funktionierte wieder problemlos, bis wir dann am Bahnhof von H.K. unseren Ansprechpartner anriefen, damit er uns (wie verabredet) abholen würde. Er war sehr verwundert, dass wir schon da wären, da ihn niemand informiert hatte. Er würde aber seine Frau anrufen, damit sie uns abholen könne. Anderthalb Stunden später fragte ich nochmals nach, ob wir nun abgeholt werden, dann eine weitere halbe Stunde später schliesslich kam eine Frau mitihrer Tochter um uns abzuholen. Sie war sichtlich genervt, da sie auch nicht über unser Kommen informiert war. Auch fragte sie mich, ob ich denn schon Bescheid wüsste über den Blinker…
Auf der Fahrt zu Mercedes (nicht der Produktionsstätte in Horice) eröffnete sie mir nach und nach, dass am Freitag “plötzlich” der Blinker auf der rechten Seite und auch der Scheibenwischer nicht mehr funktionierte. Deshalb sei das Fahrzeug nun auch bei Mercedes, aber sie hätten das noch nicht beheben können. Grumpf. Bei Mercedes blickte ich auch nur in ratlose Gesichter, aber zum ersten Mal auch das Fahrzeug und den neuen Koffer. Sieht wunderbar aus! Alles schön massiv gebaut und das Fahrerhaus auch fein neu lackiert. Leider, nicht wie vereinbart auch an den Innenseiten der Türen, aber gut. Wichtiger war indem Moment nur, ob das Fahrzeug fahrbereit sein würde. “Das rechte Rücklicht funktioniert auch nicht” hörte ich von einem Mercedes Mitarbeiter. Die nachfolgenden Diskussionen, Ärgernisse und Unklarheiten will ich hier gar nicht im Detail beschreiben, aber immerhin konnten wir gegen sechs Uhr Abends schließlich mit dem neuen Truck losfahren.
Unser erstes Ziel war Cesky Raj, und wir schafften es auch kurz nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit in Hruba Skala anzukommen und nahmen ein Zimmer im schönen alten Hotel in der Burganlage. Auf der Terasse vom angrenzenden Restaurant gab es wieder gutes tschechisches Essen und leckeres Bier zu großartiger Aussicht.
Am nächsten Morgen machten wir noch einen kleinen Spaziergang durch die spannenede Landschaft von Cesky Raj mit seinen skurrilen Felsensäulen und Schluchten. Dann kauften wir kurz ein und machten uns auf die weite Rückreise. Wir kamen mit Ausnahme von ein paar wenigen Staus gut durch und waren am späten Nachmittag wieder in Deutschland. Bei Schmidgaden kannte ich einen guten Übernachtungsplatz an einem Badesee den wir ansteuerten und bald fanden. Hier sank unsere Stimmung erstmal: an einem Tisch saß eine Runde junger Männer, einer mit Glatze. Der Frei.wild. Aufkleber auf seinem Auto war uns natürlich auch nicht entgangen. Ob das nun ein guter Ort für die Nacht sein würde stand auf einmal sehr in Frage. Dummerweise war an eine weiterfahrt bei Nacht mit defektem Rücklicht nicht zu denken. Ich war von der Fahrt total erledigt und ging erstmal schwimmen. Und danach sind wir ein bisschen die Hänge hochgekraxelt und haben die netten Wälder ums Magdalenental erkundet. Wir beschlossen ins nahe Naabtal zu fahren um etwas zu essen und dann später wieder zurück zu kommen. Bis dahin, so hofften wir, würden die Typen höchstewarscheinlich abgehauen sein. Das Essen im weissen Lamm brauchte ewig und war das schlechteste, was wir seit langem gegessen hatten. In Tütensuppe ertränkte Spätzle und Fleisch. Immerhin war die Landjugend mittlerweile vom See verschwunden und wir hatten den Platz für uns allein. Die Laune stieg und mündete in lustige Langzeitbelichtungen mit Kopflampen unter Sternenhimmel.
Die Nacht war dann etwas ungemütlich. Ein Sturm mit prasselndem Regen und Blitz und Donner brach los und dauerte bis in die Morgenstunden an. Ohne Scheibenwischer war an ein Weiterfahren natürlich nicht mehr zu denken. Die Laune sank und konnte nur mit einem Kaffee und Snack an der nächsten Tankstelle aufgefangen werden. Dort gab es auch wieder Netzabdeckung und wir konnten nun sehen, dass der Regen nicht dauerhaft bleiben sollte. Und ja, eine halbe Stunde später konnten wir uns wieder auf die Autobahn trauen. Zweimal gab es kurze Regenschauer, aber dann wurde es heiß. Der Rest der Rückfahrt war mit Staus durchzogen und daher lang, aber problem- und ereignislos. Am frühen Abend kamen wir schließlich in Düsseldorf an. Jetzt “nur” noch neuen TÜV und ich kann endlich mit dem Innenausbau beginnen…
The day of the exhibition has come and I’m feeling nervous like hell!
The night before Nadine and I did a short practice and run through our show, and I framed the last prints, sorted the postcards and did the last chores on the list. My workshop looked robbed and ransacked.
The day before that I went to Hattingen with the whole exhibition stuffed in my car and put the prints on the walls and piled the small ones o a tower. With a lot of help from Ulis family and neighbours we managed to hangall prints in time and I went home, exhausted but happy about the outcome of our work.
Now I was just nervous! It was not my first exhibition of course, but I had no idea who will show up, or if anybody would show up at all. And I’ve never played the Ukulele in front of an audience.
Half an hour before the opening, Nadine and I went up a hill to a lovely vista point to go once more through the songs. It went well, and I suddenly felt quite confident. When we arrived back at the gallery there were around 80 people already and the owners of the gallery had already started their speeches. And then they were let in. I heard some “wow” and “ooh”, and my mood rose constantly. All went well, had nice chats and at about half past eight we decided to start the musical act. “free” was our first song and was meant to gather the people around and make them shut up. The first part worked perfectly, the second didn’t. And the nervousness was back.
Also we weren’t clever enough to set up a monitor box, so there was no chance for us to hear ourselves singing or playing. At one point I tried to play the Ukulele a bit louder, because I was afraid that nobody would hear and my fingers grabbed the strings quite strongly. My nervousness had changed to fatalism. I guess the sound wasn’t that great, but everyone told us it was good. Such nice people;)
We had a big gyros pita afterwards and I kept on chatting with different people who had come to see the exhibition. It was a lovely night, and I roughly estimated 200 visitors. So for me, it felt like a total success.
Friday 14th of September: Vernissage and opening of the new Gallery “Kleine Affäre” in Blankenstein, Hattingen.
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Uli Wilkes, whom I worked for a couple of years ago and who also placed some of my woodprints in a TV production, telling me about his plans to rent a small shop right across his house in the historic center of Blankenstein. He had been a couple of times at exhibitions in our “Gallery Revolver” back then, and had some questions about running a gallery. One day after our talk he called again to tell me, that he is going for it, and asked if I could do the first show there. What a question? Of course!
In just a couple of weeks he (and his handy neighbours) managed to fully renovate the shop, including refurbishing the art-deco windows. And set up a website. And plan the following exhibitions…
For my exhibition I’m planning to set up a new tower of prints, but a bit higher than the one before. Also I have plenty of walls to show a lot of large prints, and probably some surfboards too.
I asked Nadine Beneke if she would be willing to join in that evening, and she happily agreed! I’m so happy that she will be singing some of her own songs, and perhaps some cover songs related to my prints.
Even though I have printed quite some prints in the last year, I wanted to do some new ones specially for this exhibition. Further down there’s a preview of what’s to come. All unfinished, mostly after printing the second colour.
Update: over the weekend I printed the last color and started to build new frames. For this show I will need around 30 additional frames, and with parts of other projects standing around it got quite “cozy” in my workshop…
Here are the facts:
14th September 2018
19:00 h
Kleine Affäre
Marktplatz 19
45227 Hattingen
www.kleine-affaere.de
I was asked by Zone in Bristol to do an animated film about a delicate topic: Bile Acid Diarrhoea!
The film tells the story of Lou, who tries to live her life but is constantly held back by her condition. But when Lou is diagnosed with Bile Acid Diarrhoea (also known as Bile Acid Malabsorption), she gains the power and knowledge to cut the chain of her condition and increase the quality of her life.
Fiona Allens voice was a perfect choice to deal with this sensible topic, delivered with a good sense of humour. The illustration are all vector based, as is the animation. Structures, brushes and effects were added late in the animation process.
https://www.abadstory.com
Agency: Zone
Creative Director: Matthew Pink
Client: GE Healthcare
Animationsfilm für die Becherpfand – Spendenaktion der Kinderhilfsorganisation Children for a better World e.V.
Der Film wird rund um die WM 2018 und auch danach als Spendenaufruf bei public-viewings und lokalen Fussballspielen eingesetzt.
Idee wunderbar verrülpst von Saint Elmo’s aus München, illustriert und animiert von mir. Zusätzliche Sounds und Mischung von Space Enterprises, München. Die Animation war recht knifflig, gerade das Head-rigging… Mehr info hierzu in meinem Blog: https://www.jojoensslin.de/becher-leer…
Animated short film for a call for donations for “Children for a better world e.V.” a non profit organization in germany.
The film is being used around public viewings of 2018s world cuup, and in local soccer matches. The idea was beautifully burped by Saint Elm’s, Munich. additional sounds were made by Space Enterprises, Munich. And I illustrated and animated this little piece.
Agency: Saint Elmo’s, München
Client: Children for a better world e.V.
Animationsfilm für die Becherpfand-Spendenaktion von “Children for a better world e.V.”
Zusammen mit Saint Elmo’s aus München, die die Idee und den wunderbaren Rülpssong geliefert haben, habe ich in wenigen Tagen einen kleinen illustrierten Animationsfilm erstellt.
Der Film wird rund um die WM 2018 und auch danach als Spendenaufruf bei public-viewings und lokalen Fussballspielen eingesetzt.
Animationstechnisch war es eine ordentliche Herausforderung einen geeigneten Head-rig zu basteln, der es ermöglichte den Kopf sowohl zur Seite zu drehen, wobei sich hier der Mund auch komplett öffnen lassen musste, und in der Seitenansicht somit “ausgeschnitten” ist (damit das Getränk hineingekippt werden kann) als auch den Kopf ganz in den Nacken zu legen, damit wir bis unter die Nase schauen können und sich der Mund (jetzt in der Frontalansicht) vollständig zu einem Rülpser öffnen kann. Ganz schön knifflig, aber mit dem großartigen Script “Joysticks ‘n Sliders” von Mike Overbeck hat es funktioniert. Für alle, die in After Effects animieren, kann ich dieses Plugin nur wärmstens empfehlen, ist in jedem Falle sein Geld wert und bietet tausend Anwendungsmöglichkeiten.
Client: Children for a better world e. V.
Agency: Saint Elmo’s, Munich
Art Direction: Arwed Berendts
Sounddesign: Space Enterprises, Munich
Illu 18 is coming, and I have just a few days left!
Illu 18 is a biennial group exhibition in Cologne, Germany. This year again, it will be hold in “Michael Horbach Stiftung“, lovely spacious and renovated former industrial halls. In the recent years I was happy to be selected, and it was always great fun to meet and exhibit with my colleagues from the region.
This year I was selected by the jury again and the organizers gave me the most prominent place, right across the entrance. So I really had to produce some new stuff…
Oh, my wife Dasha got selected too! And they gave her the spot right next to mine, so we share a corner.
I aimed for printing five new plates, four of them being single motifs and one plate with eight small illustration. It took me nearly three weeks of cutting, printing and watching paint drying, but I managed to finalize and frame them all – two days before setting up the exhibition…
I wanted to show some big prints, the two newest wooden surfboards and as many small prints as possible. So I decided, I needed to build a base for stacking the small prints to a tower. As I always wanted to include the printing plates in one of my exhibitions, that was a good opportunity to use them for the walls of the base.
I also needed some sideboard to present my catalogue, portfolios and my brand new “dinosaur – friendship – book”, so I sketched it and did an simple build out of leftover beechwood.
Tomorrow the setting up of the exhibition starts, still a lot left to do, but I’m really looking forward to see the other illustrators again. And probably couple of new faces too.
Illu 18 / illustratoren-festival
My canadian represantative Anna Goodson interviewed me on illustration, influences and the artistic life in general.
Here’s a small excerpt:
Can you recall the first time you realized you were going to be an artist? What were your earliest impressions?
I must have realized I was going to be an artist when I was a kid. My image of working in any profession was, for me, the thought of doing the same thing every day for the rest of my life. That thought was frightening. I always loved to draw, craft, create, and make films. It was clear to me, that I would need to work as an artist.
Who or what influenced your art when you were young?
I was influenced by books, comic books, films, music, cartoons, and my big brother.
Do you remember what your first artwork looked like? Do you still have it?
It depends how you define “first” and “artwork.” There were a lot of drawings, collages, and clay figures I was proud of, but the first time someone, outside of my family, asked to have a drawing of a cat I scribbled was during class. I was twelve years old and a girl I fancied…
Read it in full here
We all heard about the terrible impact, the opioid crisis is taking on U.S. society. The Health Departement of Vermont asked for artwork for a health campaign around pain management and avoiding opioid prescriptions where possible.
The assignment was to create three characters, representing different types of pain. The artwork is shown on posters in doctors offices and other health provider all over the state of Vermont.
Client: State of Vermont, Health Departements
Agency: HMC Advertising
Rock Trust asked me to provide a Christmas card for their annual mailing.
Rock Trust is an Edinburgh based organization providing help to homeless youth. For a couple of years now I participate in their actions and was happy to help again.
They wanted something no “too christmassy”, to transports their message of helping out together, so I thought some animals cooking a soup together might fit.
Client: The Rock Trust, Edinburgh
I was invited to participate in the annual Xmas exhibition at the Design Post in Cologne. Only problem was: I couldn’t hang my prints on the walls!
The Design Post is a huge showroom for exhibiting Furniture, Vases, Clothes etc. and I was given a corner close to my fellow illustrators Katrin Stangl, Heike Herold and Ulrike Viola Henrich. The corner was equipped with a big and heavy table, some chairs and some shelves. Everything was extremely expensive and we had to put some cloth between everything, not to leave any scratches. Same was with the walls: no nails, no screws, just hanging something with a nylon thread was okay.
For me it became clear that there was now way that I would hang all my prints with thin threads so I decided to present them in a new way: I stacked them on top of each other, clipping them together on the backside, building a round tower. It worked fine and looked really nice and after putting up my surfboards, some more prints on the shelves and a big one with nylon threads on the wall, it suddenly felt quite comfortely there.
The show found a big audience, even though it was not the audience I’m used to. As illustrators (all doing prints) we felt a bit like the outsiders in a crowd of fashion, furniture and jewellry designers. But in the afternoon some more of my colleagues from cologne appeared and it became a nice meeting.
My kids visited the show as well, and I was quite happy when my daughter pointed at each picture and enthusiastically yelled: “Papa, we have the same picture. And this too. and this too….”
So my biggest fans were happy and that was the main goal;)
Every year my canadian representative, Anna Goodson Illustration Management sends out a set of coasters.
The topic was a bit vague: loveisloveisart, but I understood it to be as a counterposition against the recent divides in society, upcoming racism nationalism etc.
There are so many things we share as humans, and I wanted my illu to be a very quiet, peaceful one. So I came up with the idea of cloudwatching people.
Anna Goodson Illustration Agency
I was asked to provide an original postcard for Rock Trusts Postcard Art Exhibition & Auction 2017. I already participated in the recent years, so I was happy to participate again.
Rock Trust is a scottish charity organization helping and working together with young people who are homeless or at the risk of becoming homeless. Every two years they organize a big postcard exhibition and auction, with participants from Scotland and abroad..
This year the Exhibition will take place in Summerhall, Edinburgh from 23. June until 14th of July.
For more information visit Rock Trust Exhibition Site
and for the auction go the Auction and bid!
Neilla, my intern at that time, filmed the whole process. With little additional footage and some editing I finally did a short clip about the woodcutting and printing process. So, lean back and watch how it’s done!
For La Viva Magazine, I regularly provide artwork about the main character “Iva” I created a while ago.
Here’s the newest one for the upcoming spring issue.
Client: La Viva Magazine
Agency: Gruner & Jahr
For Lidl’s Kids App I provided some illustration and animated a short Clip also using the existing artwork from the app.
The clip was first shown in Portugal, but will soon be adapted for more countries…
In this App you are managing a small market place. If you are successfull and satisfy the customers you are able to upgrade your stands until it will become a real supermarket.
The whole project was build and animated in After Effects, using the 3d features and quick camera movements for the transitions between the stages.
Client: Lidl
Agency: Leo Burnett, Frankfurt am Main
Invitational Surf & Bodyboard Contest. 09.03. & 10.03.2017
For the second year in a row I was lucky to be on Lanzarote while this impressive contest takes place. I was chatting with the baywatch at Famara Beach, when he told me, that El Quemao was on!
So for the afternoon and the next day the whole family went and enjoyed this lovely surf event at La Santa.
Conditions were perfect: Big Swells coming from NE and a strong and hot wind blowing from the East formed perfect tubes on the reef.
El Quemao class is an invitational Big wave Surf & Bodyboard contest, held only in perfect conditions, so its no wonder that the waiting period stretches from 1st of january until 30. of march. The List of surfers ínclude some of the best european surfers and some others coming from far away places like Tahiti and Martinique. Some of them I’ve already seen surfing in Mundaka and Teahupoo. Just to drop some names: Eric Rebiere, Kevin Bourez, Marc Lacomare, Miky Picon, Nic Von Rupp, Ramon Navarro, Tiago Pires, Tom Lowe, Antonio Marqués, Aritz Aranburu, Eukeni Masa, Natxo González…
By the way, Antonio Marqués won the surf competition.
Audi A5 Sportback G-Tron
I was asked by Chimney to create some artwork for a new TV Spot for Audis A5 G-Tron. The spot is all about memes showing differences between expectations and reality. My part would be the only animated sequene in the whole clip but it will only be about 3 seconds long. Normally I love to provide the animation as well, but this time the animation was done by Guilherme Todorov and I’m very happy with the outcome.
you can watch the full clip here on the horizont webpage
Client: Audi
Agency: Chimney, Berlin
Wind too strong, waves too big, what to do?
The wind was blowing strongly from the north, the swell was at about 1.5 meters and the whole western side of Lanzarote was a mess. So we decided to go to the eastern side of the island to find a calmer spot. Playa la Garita was packed with surfers, but the waves were pretty small and breaking close to shore. Punta Mujeres and Jameos del Agua looked nice and surfable, but we had different plans. We went on north and found a beautiful small bay sheltered from the wind and the waves. After some adventures with the kids I took my snorkeling gear and went into the water. Visibility was great and right from the beginning there was a lot to see. Goldsponges and sea cucumbers, lots of little fish and a what’s that!?
There was an octopus next to a gurnard, and he was out in the open, in plain sight, not hidden at all!
Ever since I was snorkeling encountering octopuses has always been a highlight, but for the last couple of years I was quite unlucky in finding them. And here he was, nearly waving his arms at me. I dove down, and he hid a bit between two rocks. But just as I was at the suface again, he came out, swam around and did some colour tricks. For around fifteen minutes I was able to again and again dive down to him, film him, offer him anew stone (which he always indected right away). Sometimes octopus try to grab the camera or put an arm around your hand or so, but this guy was not the touchy type. Right when I started to get too cold it seems he also had enough and swam some meters away. So I waved good bye and swam back ashore.
Do you know the qualities of your city?
Hungry Eye Media from Denver Colorada asked me to provide an illustration for their client RE/MAX, to be published on their newssite. The article deals about geo-farming and how to optimize your real estate business.
So I did some scribbling and came up with three drafts.
Client: RE/MAX
Agency: Hungry Eye Media, Denver Colorado
Two years ago I created “Iva” for “La Viva” printed issue and their website.
For most Issues I get assigned to do new artwork with Iva and her friends.
Here’s a collection of the recent ones for the December and January Issues.
Also visit the website www.laviva.com to read Iva’s blog.
Client: La Viva
Agency: Gruner & Jahr
Santa packing the sleigh…
I was asked to provide animation and sound for Lidl’s Xmas sendout.
Client: Lidl
Agency: Leo Burnett
Washing machines with special hatches, cats riding vacuum cleaners and santa in virtual reality.
For Samsung I provided 6 animated clips for their Xmas-specials.
Client: Samsung
Agency: Leo Burnett
For Samsung I provided 6 animated clips for their Xmas-specials.
Client: Samsung
Agency: Leo Burnett
Some new seasonal illustration for Chcoofresh.
For nearly eight years now I regularly provide artwork for Ferrero Chocofresh. Here’s a collection of the last half-year.
Client: Ferrero Chocofresh
Agency: La Red Berlin
For Langbrett’s “GUPPY FRIEND washing bag” project I provided an animated explanatory film and some acompanying info graphics.
Read more about this Project in this blogpost.
Client: Guppy Friend
Agency: Langbrett Berlin
My dear friend Oli Spies of Langbrett Skate and Surfshop asked me to get involved in their new project to do an important part in protecting our oceans.
Of course I was right away very interested, not just because of this important topic, but also to do something more profound than all this “nice and smiling illustrations” for commercial use.
So the background story in short: Microfibers released during the washing process of fleece and other artificial fabrics to a high percentage end up in our oceans. There they pollute and even poison marine life and accumulate again through the food chain coming back to us. Microfibers, even though being very tiny take a big hit at our environment and are already being found all around the globe.
Langbrett started to research and develop a special washing bag, called the “Guppy Friend washing bag”. This especially designed fabric is able to stop 99% of all fibers during the washing process, so they can be collected and disposed properly before they go into the waste water systems.
To fund this project they started a kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, and to explain this topic they needed an animated explanatory film. Here I came into play.
I wanted the look of the film being underwater, with some caustic effects, and lots of different fabrics, print-ons, patterns and patches, and of course: stitched typo. So I found a nice way to hijack a particle effect for adding stitches to the outlines of the fonts. Lights, caustic effects, a lot of particle emitters and animations really made my computer sweat.
To explain the problem of microfiber pollution on the accompanying pages i also provided some infographics.
Wanna learn more or even support them?
Support them here (kickstarter.com)
guppyfriend.com
langbrett.com
I was asked to do a bunch of animated gifs for a Samsung Campaign. It’s been easily 10 years since I did animated gifs, and it took me a while to understand my optimal way of production.
Normally in animation filesize isn’t an issue, but with animated gifs on social media platforms that’s different.
It turned out to be the safest way to animate as usual in After FX, but this time in 30 FPS. This gave me some flexibility with framerates, and in the end I was able to do multiple outputs in 30 FPS and 15 FPS, and combine them again in Photoshop. This way I could vary depending on the filesize, and didn’t loose fluidity through the whole animation.
During production I was asked to also provide the animation in full HD, so I was very happy, that I already did the animation in 30 FPS, so exporting to a different format was not problem. Yay!
Timing in this ob was pretty tight, but thanks to the good teamwork with Cheil’s art director Guido Böhm all went well.
Client: Samsung
Agency: Cheil
Showreel of selected animation, funny loops and interactive animation.
I finally managed to assemble my animation works and projects in a short showcase.
All animations are done in classic 2D Style, though newer ones also contain some 3D rendering, camera-, and and light effects. Depending on the assignment, animations were done fully rendered for filmprint (cinema projection), broadcast as well as interactive flash-, or html5 based animation.
Bongholio Iglesias provided some tunes for this Showcase.
Thanks, big ape!
https://www.instagram.com/bongholiooo/
Ten woodprint motifs in a Postcard-set.
Offset print on thick paper, 4 colours with UV coat on the front side.
Labelled with a hand-printed woodcut on the sleeve.
Want them? You can order them online at Orenji.de
Woodprints and related stuff
My first catalogue containing non-commissioned artwork from 14 busy years! Yeah!
On one hundred pages I’m showing not only a complete and never before seen compilation of all my woodprints, but also serigraphies, free illustration as well as some insights in my “Yolk” workshop, where the printing, shaping, cutting and glassing is done.
I printed all 100 copies of the first edition with an original woodprint on the linnen cover and now they are ready to be shipped.
If you want a copy, you can order it online at the Orenji Store.
“unfinished” – the new book of kombinatrotweiss’ artists.
Instead of providing final illustration we were asked to do scribbles, unfinished work, edgy and non-commercial, notes and blueprints of ideas. The book itself not only leaves space in form of empty pages and unfinished work but space for the viewers imagination aims to inspire the user to use it, draw in it, perhaps finish it.
www.kombinatrotweiss.de
It’s European Championship time. And so I was asked to do an animated clip for: a box!
Okay, it was not a box, but Walther Boxline, producer of all sorts of boxes, foldable crates etc.
The story was straight forward but the timing was pretty tight, so I had to start right away. For this animation I wanted to achieve more space and depth in the images, so I decided to arrange all layers and animation in a 3D environment to be able to use virtual cameras and their depth of field. It was quite tricky, but as always I learned a lot and am quite happy with the outcome.
Client: Walther Faltbox / Boxline.de
Agency: Thorben Roth Design
I regularly provide Illustration for Ferrero Chocofresh’s online sites. The Illustration often contain a mix of seasonal topics, small quizzes and mazes.
Here are some Illus I did in the first quarter of the year.
Client: Ferrero Chocofresh
Agency: La Red Berlin/Hamburg
For it’s third time the “illustratoren-festival” was held up in cologne showing more than 50 artists.
Initiated and organized from illustrators for illustrators it became a big success in the first two events in 2012 and 2014, attracting more than 2000 visitors. So the stakes were high.
Because the former venue wasn’t available anymore, the show moved to a new Place. And what a beautiful place it was: Horbach Stiftung in Cologne Südstadt is located in fully renovated industrial buildings, seperated in three main halls with walls reaching up to 6 meters.
It’s been so nice and inspirational to meet all my fellow colleagues. Meeting some of them for the third time in a group show, it felt very familiar right from the start.
For this exhibition the Illu 16 Team spend some money on new wooden walls and they were worth their money. With lots of helping hands we put them together and started hanging our work. For me that was quite a challenge. This time I wanted to show a lot of smaller prints and one or two large ones. But I didn’t do any planning on where to hang which one. So I just started by climbing up the highest ladder I could find and hang one large print as high as possible, just to see if it would look good. It looked good, so I hanged another one on the other wall and started filling up the spaces in between with smaller ones. And it worked quite well even without any planning or grid. Perhaps I was just lucky.
We were still a bit afraid that the new venue or other events on that day could mean few visitors. But we were quite wrong. The opening of the show was a sucess and the next days brought so many visitors that there was a queue up to the street from time to time.
For three days the show was opened, and I hardly managed to speak to every artist or to go to all lectures. It was just too much. And full. More than 3000 vistitors on three days. phew!
Big thanks to the organizing team who did a great job putting up this wonderful powwow of regional artists.
An overview of my animation-work. In a comic-style envelope.
The showreel contains commissioned as well as non-commissioned animation I created over the last years.
Music by the great Ape himself, Bongholio Iglesias.
