I wanted to do this retrospective almost 2 years ago .... talking about procastination here, even with having pretty much all the files ready haha.
So, I´ll give a shout out to Casey and Okha , who still had a lot of my old images and saved me a lot time :)
I´m just going to cover the years 2000-2006 though. From 2006+ you can see most of my drawings here in the archives anyway haha
Oh and this was inspired by the wonderful Katie Rice , I highly recommend to visit her blog... her retrospective is unfortunatly gone :( And make sure to check the look-back from Daniel Lieske Daniel Lieske
Short Story: I´m drawing since I can hold a pencil and, inspired by cartoons( I remember that there was always a special back then in TV with the old Silly Symphonys every Saturday, loved these ) and the Disney Feature films, wanted to become a Animator at Disney . Never became one, end of the story...
(btw. dont give too much attention to the file names, at certain points I just didn´t knew the exact year anymore )
2000-2003
This has been the years I discovered Internet and quickly found the animexx community ( at the end of 2000 I think ), where you could upload fanarts and share them with other members. A lot of people I got to know there, are still present in my life to this very day and I´m looking back rather fondly to this times :) Basicly this has been my first experience in terms of getting more feedback on my works. I actually think that all this exchange with other likeminded individuals has had a high impact on my works so... I really cannot imagine where I would be today without the Interwebs ;)
And I still had the motivation to finish one Illustration per week haha
Influenced by the few Mangas and Anime that were on the market around that time I was highly influenced by Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Battle Angel Alita , Record of Lodoss War and Escaflowne( character designer Nobuteru Yuuki was in fact the first animator whoose name I actually remembered and the first Anime based Artbook I bought was some kind of groundwork Artbook with for the Escaflowne Movie XD
I almost exclusivly worked with traditional media, also using a mouse every now and then to test with digital media. But as the gain was so little and I couldn´t invest much time to practise, I still stayed with watercolor, ink and pencils... and screentones, cause we all know a real mangaka uses screentones so I bought a lot of these expensive foils to work with them... I actually still own a few sheets...all unused of course
Oh the embarassment ahahaha I regret nothing though XDD
Already got influenced by Internet Artists like Saka, Galou and Locke ! Did some testing with Painter and I was a lot into Resident Evil, I think the remake got out at that ... and still have soooo much fanart from that time
And I remember to really have a thing for cityscapes and all kinds of urban things, all thanks to Casey ... :)
Its kind of strange, at some point I really got out of it, despite of having so much fun drawing this kind of things. I wanted to draw comics but doubted my abilitys to go pro at some point. Dunno why..
2004-2006
Got my own mac for my 19th birthday ( a PowerMacG3... the keyboard was already broken with some keys not working which results in some funny filenames) with Ps6 on it and could finally properly practise CGing. I already owned a small wacom at that time and now spent all my free time between school and jobbing to practise :D Couldn´t wáít to do what I´ve seen from other artists online. The beginning wasn´t very fruitful though, I had a hard time getting used to do everything digital. I still sketched a lot and mostly used my pencil- or inkdrawings as linearts
Also I started to study Graphic Design in Hildesheim that year and at the end of 2004 I discovered ca.org and was blown away haha Also a few month later I bought a proper sketchbook, beeing inspired by wesburt to actually render with pencil... well I tried XD
From then I basicly spent every free minute to practise drawing and anatomy.
Filled a few sketchbooks until I got tired of it.
As far as CG were concerned I still made a lot of testing and tried to find a good way of rendering form.
Also started with a few comics during that time but never finished them...
Whats left is a big bunch of stiff drawings and frustration over non existent ability to create interesting images. And I wrongly thought that this was cause I was simply not skilled enough with the basic principles haha So it´s just sketches sketches sketches.
Trying to change that though... slowly and gradually ;)
Still I wonder at times what made me stop doing cityscapes or doing animations, its like back then I was just drawing and now I´m even afraid to start something like that at all..
Don´t know what else to say, I feel like this is pretty boring somehow... If you have questions feel free to ask.
I´m happy to have this off my chest :)
