Commissioned Portrait of Me by ~Suwi

Yeah, so I wanted to share this wonderful portrait Suwi did of me last year! Check her gallery out, she's one of the most impressive artists of her field in my high opinion.

Sea Collage Process

I've created a few collages on cardboard for the walls of my room. Here is the process for one of them as GIF with steps below (click it to replay it).

1 - I sweeped up my room first to prevent dirt from getting on the adhesive tape.
2 - Next I chose sealife focused photography books I bought used for a few euros.
3 - Then I searched the photos I find fitting. I looked for underwater shots for this one.
4 - Cutting out the pages I liked I tried out putting them together on the cardboard.
5 - I took care of the overall flow and the edges as far as possible.
6 - To cut off pieces and torn edges I used two woodboards with straight edges and a cutter.
7 - The adhesive tape came into play as soon as I knew how I definitely wanted to begin.
8 - I fixed every piece with a small piece of tape when I've found the right place. No need to fix them completely, since newer ones will overlap the old ones.
9 - As soon as everything is fixed to its place I use the adhesive tape to fix all edges, as you can see on the reflection. This makes it all more flat and prevents it from easily being damaged.

First Plein Air

Yep! My friend and artmate Tim Keil who recently lives in Berlin is on a visit here and we went outside for some plein air. I used watercolor (for the first time in years).

First Pixel Art :D

Was quite a challange. Started from scratch and my character idea was not a simple one as well..
This is a 600x Zoom here, the original version is extremely tiny.

My Workplace

Everyone is doing it and why shouldn't I? That's what my workplace looks like:

Two tables; The one near the door is my digital workstation with my screen (and hopefully with a second one soon) and my tablet. The big one is for all the rest. I change the light to draw and paint over there. If I turned the camera to the right you would see my art closet with all my artsy books and my materials.
I still need to fill the walls though..

Cybernetic Worker Concept

front shot concept for a cybernetic worker unit done in spring 2012

Birthday Present

My mate Zeitwolf painted a sexy barbarian woman for me =)

(and I did a slight Overpaint)

OP: Dramatic Lighting

OP of Jetjakal's Waste Punk

The left one is the original. I extended the canvas for the composition and made everything more dramatic.
I like the drawing and the shapes are really interesting but the lighting does not emphasize this awesomeness. I really felt the urge to do an overpaint because I wanted to see how my idea looks like when executed.

Taklamakan

Let me show you something..
My mind is so blown by it recently: The Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China.

Quoting Wikipedia:
"It has an area of 337,000 km2. (130,116 sq. mi.), and includes the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travelers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the world's second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes ranking 18th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts."

So what I want to make you realize is, how huge it is. I made some screenshots on Google Maps and zoomed out. First off I'm showing you how huge one of those big dunes is (think about it, 200 meters!).
Now look at the screenshots...

And two other amazing things I wanted to share as well:


Kara Buran

Kara Buran, the "black sand storm." He can raise a ton of sand and persist for days or even weeks. It got its name because it often darkens the sky. The time of the Kara Buran is from February to June, and the sand storm is coming every three to five days, especially from the Northeast. The dust clouds created by it can last a week and significantly reduce the solar radiation. Since he already devoured many caravans and probably even entire cities, he is associated with many myths.

Tarim Mummies

A team of Chinese and American researchers working in Sweden tested DNA from 52 separate mummies, including the mummy denoted "Beauty of Loulan." The features of the Loulan Beauty have been described as Nordic in appearance. She was approximately 45 years old when she died. By genetically mapping the mummies' origins, the researchers confirmed the theory that these mummies were of West Eurasian descent.
- Many of them had red hair and european facial features. It’s not impossible that they brought copper working to China, although that is up for debate. Their texiles have a celtic tartan look to them. -
Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania professor and project leader for the team that did the genetic mapping, commented that these studies were:

"...extremely important because they link up eastern and western Eurasia at a formative stage of civilization (Bronze Age and early Iron Age) in a much closer way than has ever been done before."

[Wikipedia]


Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Stryke

1st Vehicle

Don't wonder - it's done freehand. My mate Surthur was the one who motivated me to try this out.
The cool is, if you understand the basics of construction you can build everything actually.. let's see what I will use this for. I like spaceships and such but I don't feel like painting them.. hmm

some kind of milestone :D

International Comic Salon 2012

Hey, yes I went there this year and it was awesome. I've seen the 50 Years Spider Man Special with all Issues and Spider Man originals. Many of the old ones are funny and ridiculous.
There was a comic mag contest called "Comic Clash" too, where the mag Oh Magazin of my mate Lew won the 1. place, yeeh!

And of course I bought some great stuff: The District 9 Art/Conceptbook, the limited movie 'Brain Work Melt' with small artbook, great postcards and Moebius' ARZACH (hell yes!).
I also got a bunch of reading samples, smaller comics and comic compilations.

While I've seen a hell load of comics I additionally met new cool people and I think, if you are a comic artist this event is a must to get rid of your copies, earn some money and tie new contacts.
I really recommend this to everyone who is able to get there.

Wait a minute..

Yep. This is a real brush.

And while we are at new technology...  Ipads (to name one) on which you can do digital life painting in the park.. damn, that sounds sweet to me. It would boost my skill progress for sure. If I think about how impossible it is to do same with my workstation... I can't even do good still lifes here.
The question that comes up is: Is it worth the money in the long run?


Also, did you see those new Augmented Reality Glasses of Google? I can't wait to use this cyberpunkish technology.. but I assume the first devices for AR will be quite crappy. Same for 3D Vision on the PC.
I know it already exists but.. it's a) improvable and b) merely available. I think sculpting and playing games in 3D will be rad. But let's wait; first we got to survive the coming worldwide currency crisis..

And remember: Everything was Science Fiction once..

Stryke