This is a birthday present I did recently. I usually don't like to do that, but when I was ill I didn't have the time to buy a proper one. And she wished for it ... last year. She explicitly asked for a pirate. What could I do? I made an exception to the rule. Then I quickly bought a cheap plastic baroque picture frame to add that special extra something. When I gave it to her she yelled and immediately hung it to the wall. Well, I guess she liked it ...
We're quite busy at the studio right now because we have a deadline in a couple of weeks. So it was a bad time to get ill but I'm fit again and back into business. Earlier this week I finished the model sheets for a rhino and it already looks quite nice in CG. And it will absolutely not look like the one above. I'm really sorry that I can't show any of the actual designs. So here is a fun drawing instead.
As you might know there are black rhinos and white rhinos, well I would call this one a black and white rhino. Oh, and he is the editor of the "Daily Jungle News".
I've got the flu. That's boring. But the fates have been at least partially merciful with me. Yesterday I borrowed Shogun on DVD from the city libraray. You know, the mini-series from the 80s starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune. Television at its finest. Haven't seen it in ages. Makes being ill much less boring. Domo arigato gozaimasu!
Oh, I almost forgot. I did this picture for a pitch. Quite different in style. Guess what the theme was!
Last week I didn't have the time to colourize the scribble of this triple-horned little fellow - so I did it at the weekend. As always I tried out a lot of different things. This it the final version in glorious Technicolor.
This is the first colour version I did. It's okay but somehow I wasn't satisfied with it. So I tried out a lot of different versions until I came up with the red and blue one. I really like to fool around with the colours. That's a big advantage when working digital.
When I start to add the colours I always like to see what the silhouette looks like. In this case I think it's rather nice. So I added the eyes and the teeth again.
And finally the raw sketch.
The scribble for this one was lying around on my desk for ages. Now I finally did the inking. And I will definately colourize it. But not today!
Sometimes people say, "Oh, you like to draw big noses!". Yes, that's true. I can't deny it. I love big noses. It's a recurring theme. But it's not fair to be reduced to just one oversized part of the body. I can do much more than that. I can do big ears too! Haha!
You wouldn't believe how long it took me to finish this one. Of course I don't mean the sketch. That came out of the blue. Ten minutes or so. But the colouring took ages. I tried a lot of different things, especially with the lines. And I totally blew up the thing in photoshop. In the end I had about a zillion layers I guess. I hope you appreciate that ...
Below are the sketch and a first colour version.
This is Geezer. He is a big fan of Deep Purple - since 1969.
Sometimes at the canteen where we like to go for lunch there is this guy. You look at him and you just know he loves classic rock and presumably plays bass guitar - maybe in some Deep Purple cover band. He definately has been collecting records for a long time. Needless to say that he prefers vinyl. He works at an government agency. And though his colleagues think he's got a spleen he is a really nice guy. At least that's the story we came up with ...
Recently I bought a black Copic marker. I never owned a black one before. They are really nice for quick sketches. Though I have to admit that those sketches tend to be rather big.
I started off this blog with a pirate post. But since then there have been no pirates at all. And no skulls and skeletons too. That's a shame. So here is the 2-in-1 package: A skeleton pirate! Aaarrrrrrr!
(I wasn't in the mood for soft shading so I used some colour hatching instead this time.)
Does anyone remember the Homie Bears? It's a little personal project I started last year. I posted a series of pictures back then. (Just click on the label "Homie Bears" at the bottom of the post to see them.) Recently I took the time to work on it again.
I thought they could use some company. Here is the first of the Homie Ducks. His name is Rupert and he loves to go fishing. And it's best to get up quite early to do so.
In April I started working on the character design for our new movie at Ambient Entertainment. It's called Die Konferenz der Tiere (The Conference of the Animals) and is based on the famous book by Erich Kästner written in 1949. The story takes place in Africa and features - as you may have already guessed - all kinds of animals. That means of course a lot of research and so I already bought my annual ticket for the Zoo in Hannover, which is quite marvelous by the way.
But there are no hippos at all in the story. Can you believe that?
As you might know dogs have a great sense of hearing. So it's no big surprise that they like to enjoy the ultimate stereo sound experience in nothing less than high fidelity.
This picture is a little bit older, but I haven't posted it here.
At work I like to play a little game and ask a colleague to say something that I'll have to draw then. With this one it went like this:
"OK, say something."
"Errr ... Giraffe."
"Well ... say something else."
"Crazy Cop?"
"That's good."
Then I did a scribble which wasn't too crazy at all, but that's where the idea came from. Thanks to Michael for the inspiration.
(By the way, the sandwich is of course low-fat because he minds keeping his body in shape ... but he's a tough guy nevertheless!)
The Animation Talk was great. Mr. Silver turned out to be a very nice guy. I took a lot of photos and will post a selection soon. In the meantime a little watercolour sketch I did recently.
Today I'm going to the Animation Talk in Hamburg. Stephen Silver is giving a lecture there at the chamber of commerce. Harald Siepermann and Uli Meyer will also be there - so it's definately going to be great!
This is a collaboration between Jens (who is lead storyboarder at our studio) and me. We were just sribbling away to distract ourselves from doing some serious work when Jens drew this cute little chimp. I spontaneously had to ink it.
So through this great joint venture we're proud to present you the recently discovered and extremly rare long-necked sugar water chimpanzee. Slurp! Cheers!
To be honest this guy wasn't meant to be Bruce Willis. But after I added the undershirt things just fell into place. Some blood, dirt, a plaster and something that just exploded. Die hard with a nose. There you are!
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