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

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

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