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Were do you currently live and how long have you been on earth? We promise not to stalk you.
I'll make sure to look behind my back every once in a while, haha.
Anyway - I currently live in Santa Monica, California. I have been in the States for over six years now. I spent nearly two of those in Hawaii, while I was working on the Final Fantasy movie and the rest in Los Angeles. I'm turning thirty(!) in about two weeks - yeah, getting old.
How long has artwork been a part of your life?
Pretty much all my life. I remeber when I started drawing - I was around seven years old. My dad, being a journalist, always had these massive stacks of paper around - back then he was still writing on his old typewriter - so one of those days I took a stack of his paper and started drawing - piece after piece. I remember always having the radio on while drawing - the 'Village People' coming out of the speaker was one of the other early things I remember. How much they influenced my early beginnings I can't tell.
As I got older I started drawing even more. I always stuck with drawing though - I never wanted to paint, since I always made a terrible mess, and even for a twelve year old it looked kinda silly to run around with paint all over them - at least that's what I thought back then.
What is your favorite medium to work with?
The computer. It's my medium of choice - even though I feel a bitter lack of traditional education, I'm always drawn to the computer - kind of natural affinity. Other than that I'm very interested in water color these days. But unfortunately too lazy to get out and paint most of the times.
When did you first get started with digital illustration?
I had a Commodore 64 when I was fifteen - after I got sick of playing games, I wanted to try to make images like I saw in those games. So I started working in a little paint program called 'Paint Magic'. It was very simple and I had to place the pixels with a joystick, but with a resolution of 160x200 and four colors it was the appropriate input device.
What kind of work do you do for a living?
I'm a freelance digital matter painter / digital artist these days. I mostly work for movies and commercials, but every once in a while I'm doing stuff for games too. I mostly do digital paintwork, but also texture/lighting and compositing.
Can you tell us a little bit about some of the bigger projects you have worked on?
Hmm - there's not a lot of them, but let's see:
Apollo 13 - was the first movie I ever worked on. I did digital paint work, but no mattes really. I helped on some of the moon and earth backgrounds but mostly painted out rigs in the moco-shots and did some roto work too.
Fifth Element - I only did conceptual work on this one, and didn't get credits, but I'm responsible for the view out of 'Zorg's' office - it's got a round window and the view of Central Park in the future was designed by me, with the excellent guidance on Mark Steson, the visual effects supervisor.
Dante's Peak - did a lot on this one, but it was a very troubled show, since they pulled the deadline 2 months closer, to be in release before 'Volcano'. I learned a lot on that show.
Titanic - I was very involved in this show too. I painted the sunset sky in the background of the shots where they are standing on the bow of the ship. I also did a lot of other work on it - but so did about a 1000 other people all over town - what a monster project that was.
Final Fantasy - I was part of the preproduction phase. I was working in Hawaii for almost two years. It was great to be part of this. A couple of my early mattes made it in the movie.
Are there any artists, musicians, friends, or family members that really inspire you?
My mother always supported my artistic desires and I can't thank her enough for that. Family support is so important to find what one really likes to do. I had so many friends where the father insisted that they'd become a doctor, engineer or lawyer when they were really talented young artists and all they wanted to do was going into arts. One friend made it out of his dad's claws and is one of the hottest graphic designers in the viennese advertising scene. That shows that if you have the urge to follow your desires - do it.
On the painting side my early influences were other artists that worked on the Amiga, and recently Craig Mullins, who's fantastic talent gave me a big jolt and motivated me to get better and learn new things. Traditional painters would be all of the impressionists - now I understand what they were after ;)
Since I'm making, for me therapeutical, music too I've been influenced by many artists - I love music and couldn't live without it. Here are some musicians that I love and influence me - Aphex Twin, A Tribe Called Quest, Gary Numan, Spearhead, Orbital, Romeo Knight, Radix, Thievery Corporation, Luke Vibert, Aphrodite and many many more ...
What's the first thing you'd buy if you won $10 million (besides buying me a
Corvette)?
Actually, I'd buy you one of those old Porsche Spiders - much nicer in my humble opinion. Well, I'd move back to Hawaii and buy a boat, so I can go diving.
Aside from art, what other interests or hobbies do you enjoy?
Freediving is one of my passions - I can go down to 80 feet ( 27 meters) with holding my breath. I love the water and try to go diving as often as I can. It's a little bit more difficult here in California compared to Hawaii, but nevertheless a thrill I don't ever want to miss.
Music of course - also more difficult nowadays, but I still get some tracks out every once in a while. Propellerhead's 'Reason' is awesome, because you can have everything at your fingertipsa without a lot of setup time.
Just bought an RC plane - we'll see how much time is left for that.
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