Free at last!

Last week we finally finished work on on our recent movie URMEL VOLL IN FAHRT. And to be honest, I'm glad it's over! This year has been pretty stressful so far and I'm quite exhausted. Now I'm enjoying my newly gained freedom. A couple of weeks off is just what I need. And so far I've been lazy like a bone ...

Above you can watch the trailer. It doesn't look very splendid here to be honest. I was just curious to test the movie uplaoding feature! A better high-resolution version can be found over here.

The movie was made at Ambient Entertainment, a small studio here in Hannover, Germany. That's where I work most of the time. I was mainly responsible for the character design and the CG-supervision of the characters. But over the course of production I did a lot of other things too. It's our third CG feature film and done at a rather decent budget compared to US productions!

URMEL VOLL IN FAHRT by the way means something like URMEL - FULL THROTTLE. Urmel is the green dragon-like main character. It's based on a famous German children's book from the sixties and the sequel to URMEL AUS DEM EIS which we did before. It will hit German cinemas on the first of May.

I recently discovered (and actually as I'm writing this!) that I haven't written much about what I'm actually doing to earn a living so far. Maybe I'll write more about that in the future - in case you're interested!

Batman - The Dark Knight!

Again another unusual piece for me. To be honest I've never been much into the superhero business at all. I grew up with Asterix, Tintin and Spirou. But Batman is quite cool. So here is my humble version of the Dark Knight.

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO TURN ON THE LIGHT AND TO REVEAL A LITTLE BIT OF HIS TRUE IDENTITY!

Oh boy, I guess nobody will read the text and click on the picture ...

Little Punky!

And now for something completely different ...

I have to admit this is a quite unusual piece for me. Well, it was just a spontaneous scribble. But somehow I like this anarchic little fellow. So here it is.

Curly Rockabilly Pompadour Hairstyle!

Lately I've been complaining about how busy I am because we're finishing our current movie at the moment. Well, it got even worse. We had to start head over heels with some new character and conceptual designs for our next movie because of some federal funding deadline. Of course no final designs, just something to give an idea of the mood. And though it was stressful it was much fun. It's always great to start with something new and to come up with new fresh ideas. The bad thing is that the work we actually have to do has still to be done. So a lot of long hours.

Today I did a final conceptual illustration that came out very neat. Sadly I'm not allowed to show it. Confidential, ya know ...

So in the meantime a little sketch I did recently. Another hairstyle. Curly likes to wear his hair high.

Mr.Cheese!

OK, I admit it's rather odd to voluntarily draw a piece of cheese. It just happened. But everything is there: action, adventure and romance. Give a warm welcome to the most extraordinary Mr.Cheese!

An ordinary guy!

An ordinary guy. Done with an ordinary pencil.

Alien Slug!

We are at the moment finishing out 3rd cg movie. It's the sequel to Urmel aus dem Eis (aka Impy's Island). I'm doing compositing, effects and some graphic design at the moment. So not much drawing at all. The good thing is I'll start with new designs very soon ...

This is an older drawing I coloured today. An alien slug called Sluggy.

Happy New Year!

The new year started off quite busy. A lot of work to do. And building up my new wardrobe has been my greatest achievement so far. The next big thing is putting all my stuff back into the bedroom and the new wardrobe respectively so that I can get through to the living room window again and turn off the lamp in the corner ...

All the best for the New Year! And may it be a good one!

Mr.Gurke Strikes Again!

Recently Mr. Jörn Gebert asked if I ran out of nosejuice. I'm glad to inform you that I'm not. So here is another conk for the collection.

Back to Gaya!

These designs are from BACK TO GAYA, the first movie I worked on. They date back to the year 2001. At least that's what the signature says. Gosh, is it really that long ago?! In that year I made my diploma and stumbled right into the production of the first ever German CG movie. There I worked together with most of the people from the Bilderwumme. Though it was a suicide squad altogether, we had a great time after all back in the good old days of the Royal Art Department known as the ADs ...

The first picture shows two character studies. You can easily imagine by whom the left one was inspired. The other is somehow a little bit amish. The bottom one is a design for a guard which ended up in the movie. And they are all 100% non-digital. Used a lot of marker back then.

Goblin!

Just a goblin.

Pictoplasma 2007!

Mr. Schwarz and I will attend the PICTOPLASMA ANIMATION FESTIVAL in Berlin this weekend. Especially for this occasion we fabricated the handcrafted buttons on the picture above. So watch out for the guys with the cool buttons. See you in Berlin!

OK, so much for the advertising.

I'm quite busy again. I got a call today that an advertising job for which I did some layouts two weeks ago has to be finished until tuesday. Great. As if I didn't have enough to do anyway. But I do not complain. At least I won't get bored ...

So above is a scribble from the vaults. A portrait of a guy called Jürgen I once met.

Passepartout!

This a character design I did for fun. It's Jean Passepartout from Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. He is described as a likeable fellow with "a good round head, such as one likes to see on the shoulders of a friend". And he is as much passionate and fun as his new master Phileas Fogg is not. A true Parisian from Paris.

So imagine a happy Passepartout standing inside the house at No.7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens just after he heard Mr. Fogg say: "Now from this moment, twenty-nine minutes after eleven, a.m., this Wednesday, 2nd October, you are in my service."

Gone nuts?!

Last week you liked the thick brush outlines. So this week I drew some fine lines. Well, always do the unexpected ... I did the scribble for this one after reading some ancient MAD-magazines. For me the best loo-reading available on the market!

At first I suggested that he went mad about some stock exchange stuff. OK, I admit that's boring. Then Thies came up with the idea that he might be watching the ladies at the aerobic course. Much better. Well, but maybe Jensemann is right and a female colleague just dropped a pencil ...

I'm open for further suggestions.

Happy 4th Birthday!

This young Lady celebrated her 4th birthday on tuesday. Quite an impressive age. All the grandparents were there and she got some Barbie toys and something with a horse. Well, she didn't have the time to tell me more on the phone, but I guess it was all too exciting.

Because I couldn't find an envelope that was big enough for the cuddle toy thing, I drew this picture instead. Happy 4th birthday!

All the best birthday wishes,

Your Uncle Olli

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

I did this seasonable picture last year for the Bilderwumme. But there's an autumn every year, isn't it? So here it is again. For an extra special something I added a close-up of the boy along with the scribble.

This is the text I provided with last year's post.

Every day we go to lunch we walk through the town hall park where some beautiful tall trees are growing. So we saw them change the colors throughout autumn.

Last week I spontaneously drew the tree on the left in photoshop after lunch. Later I tried out a couple of different backgrounds before I added the little kid with the kite. This time I used no outlines at all, which I do very seldom.

Have yourself some nice bright sunshiny autumn days.

Dr. Zwengelmann!

This is a character study I did for the movie URMEL AUS DEM EIS. Recently I've been scanning and polishing up the designs and stumbled across this one. I immediately felt compelled to add some sunshiny grey.

This jolly gentleman is called Dr. Zwengelmann. He's a zoo director and the civil servant type of guy. And he's a little bit coleric too.

Busy ...

Black and white again. I'm quite busy at the moment. So just a little scribble I did the other day. A big nose with some funny hatching.

The Reverend!

This is a sketch I did at work today. Back at home I added the black areas. Then I desperatly tried to colourize it, but it didn't get any better. So why should I give myself a hard time? And here it is in glorious black and white.

PS: I wonder if this could be a relative to Roderick von Dornmark, who has been portrayed so wonderfully by Mr. Thies Schwarz.

Tiny Troeter!

This is a teeny-weeny drawing I did during a boring meeting.

If you take a muted trumpet, mix it with a kazoo and flavour it with a little bit of bass clarinet, you'll get a pretty good impression of what the sound is like he produces.

And here is the sketch. I added the pen I used for drawing it for size comparison.