I heard that it's the warmest winter since 250 years over here in Germany. So I thought it won't snow this year! What a pleasuring surprise.
Anyways here are some pictures I took a few days ago.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Home
I'm currently in my hometown Hamburg. As I woke up today and looked out of the window I couldn't believe what I was seeing...snow! For the first time this year.
I heard that it's the warmest winter since 250 years over here in Germany. So I thought it won't snow this year! What a pleasuring surprise.
Anyways here are some pictures I took a few days ago.
I heard that it's the warmest winter since 250 years over here in Germany. So I thought it won't snow this year! What a pleasuring surprise.
Anyways here are some pictures I took a few days ago.
Friday, December 22, 2006
27
I'm living exactly 27 years now on this planet yey!
I got a really suprising birthday gift from my buddy Felix ^^.
This is one of the first PC games I ever played (many years ago at my neighbours place)
"CHICAGO 90" with the original packaging!!! Anyone remembers this awesome game?
I wanna play it right now but....I have no floppy drive ^^;
I'm gonna try it when I get back to Ludwigsburg. I guess I'll find a PC with a floppy drive somewhere... Felix you rock!
What else did I get...a very nice wallet (it was time to get a new one ^^) And a guitar bag.
There is a highschool class reunion later this evening. Looking forward to see some
old friends again!
I got a really suprising birthday gift from my buddy Felix ^^.
This is one of the first PC games I ever played (many years ago at my neighbours place)
"CHICAGO 90" with the original packaging!!! Anyone remembers this awesome game?
I wanna play it right now but....I have no floppy drive ^^;
I'm gonna try it when I get back to Ludwigsburg. I guess I'll find a PC with a floppy drive somewhere... Felix you rock!
What else did I get...a very nice wallet (it was time to get a new one ^^) And a guitar bag.
There is a highschool class reunion later this evening. Looking forward to see some
old friends again!
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
Monday Sketchround
In today's sketchround David chose a reference photo and everyone had only
one minute to look at it. The task was to paint it from memory in 30min.
Was nice to see everyones interpretation.
Here is my contribution.
Oh and yesterday night I saw the movie Pay It Forward Directed by Mimi Leder. Can't believe I haven't seen it before.
It's a great movie.
one minute to look at it. The task was to paint it from memory in 30min.
Was nice to see everyones interpretation.
Here is my contribution.
Oh and yesterday night I saw the movie Pay It Forward Directed by Mimi Leder. Can't believe I haven't seen it before.
It's a great movie.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Chillin' on a Bench
It's pretty warm at the moment here in Germany....about 16degrees.
Definetly not winter. Snow wound be great...
Definetly not winter. Snow wound be great...
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Ice Skating
I went ice skating yesterday. It gives you a feeling that it's actually winter, even if there is no snow and it's not too cold at the moment.
I had a great time but I forgot how exhausting ice skating can be ^^;
Now I have sore muscles in my back ^^
Think I have some new stuff to show by tomorrow.
gn8
P.S. Happy birthday Patrick!
I had a great time but I forgot how exhausting ice skating can be ^^;
Now I have sore muscles in my back ^^
Think I have some new stuff to show by tomorrow.
gn8
P.S. Happy birthday Patrick!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Wednesday Life Drawing
The model was late and two girls, my buddy Bernhard and I had to do 3min poses (with clothes) until the he finally arrived ^^;
Unfortunately the class took only 40min today.
Unfortunately the class took only 40min today.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Another Speedpaint Session
We had a sketch round again with the Filmakademie students. 30min traditional sketching and 30min digital speedpainting, everybody did great!
Here is my 30min contribution.
Here is my 30min contribution.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Speedpainting
This is a painting I did a while ago. I recorded the screen while painting. I couldn't make it to add an audio track, sorry for that... ^^
This tutorial video is also available on my website, some of you might now it already.
Actually I did a new painting video today...but when I was finished the video file was corrupt T.T
That's why I'm using this old tutorial. It took 1h23min from start to finish.
Most of the time when I'm doing speedpaintings I have absolutely no idea what I'm gonna paint. I just start with a background color, then I start to block in some random shapes. Suddenly I see a character in one of my shapes and I start to add some rough paint strokes to play with the silhouette. But then again the character looks more like a tree or some kind of rock. So I just continue to paint and the image is always changing. This process is really fun.
Robin asked me for some tips and trick so here are some things you should keep in mind while painting.
1. Backgroundcolor
I rarely start with a white canvas. Cause white is the brightest color. If white is already your backgroundcolor, it's often times hard to handle the values in your painting. You can only go darker but you have no option to go into the highlight areas cause you already have the brightest color as your background. So a good thing is to start with a midtone. The color or value of your background is also dependent on your environment. So when I would like to paint something like a forest by daylight I would tend to use a brownish or greenish midtone as a background color. When I paint something dark and cool I start out with a dark blue or gray background.
2. Values
In the foreground you have usually the highest contrast. The darkest darks and the brightest brights. The farther things are away from your viewpoint the lower is the contrast. When you are in the stage where you block in your shapes, keep that in mind.
You will see in the tutorial that the rocks in the background have almost the same value as the sky and the color is only slightly different form each other.
Then again the foreground has a strong contrast with the dark rocks. They pop forward.
Here is an example I just did in 5min.
The decreasing contrast and the decreasing size of the objects gives you a sense of depth in the image. Using grayscales is a great way to study values.
3. Highlights
When you have no experience in using colors, you will notice that you tend to use white for the highlights. But when you observe highlights you will see that they are rarely white. In sunlight for example the highlights are very saturated. That doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to use white highlights, cause metallic objects often have bright white highlights. Just remember that dependent on the material and the lighting highlight colors can vary a lot.
The wooden beam below shows what I mean. The highlight area is a saturated light brown.
4. Start Rough and Fast end Detailed and Slow
When you are painting it is important to keep it rough at the beginning. Work on the whole painting all the time. Don't struggle with details.
In this example I did a painting using a reference photo in about 30min.
Reference Image
Speed Painting
So try to be fast and loose at the beginning. It's harder than it sounds ^^
5. Painting from reference images
As I said in the post before, it helped me a lot painting from reference to understand values, colors and light. I think it is a pretty good way to learn how colors and light work together. An important thing when you paint from reference images is not to pick the colors with the eyedropper tool. Try to see the colors with your own eyes and pick the colors by yourself.
When you pick the colors always ask yourself why you decide to pick this certain color. 'why do you use this dark gray for the skin tone in the shadow' or 'why do you use a saturated orange for the forest ground' etc.
Paint with a time limit around 30min up to one hour. If the painting looks ugly even after an hour don't worry about it, save your work and try to be better next time. The more mistakes you do the more you learn out of them. Number your images so you can always look back and see your progress.
For example:
sp_0001_image title
sp_0002_image title
etc.
I did around 30 paintings from reference back in the days. And did some paintings of my own in between using the experience I gained through the reference images. And suddenly I could create moods without using reference images. That was an awesome moment ^^
As long as you practice you will get better and better. Just keep that in mind.
The points I mentioned above helped me improve my painting skills very quickly.
Hope it might help some people out there as well!
And here is the painting I did today. As I said, I did a screen caputre of this one but the capture file was corrupt so no video...sorry T.T
over and out ^^
This tutorial video is also available on my website, some of you might now it already.
Actually I did a new painting video today...but when I was finished the video file was corrupt T.T
That's why I'm using this old tutorial. It took 1h23min from start to finish.
Most of the time when I'm doing speedpaintings I have absolutely no idea what I'm gonna paint. I just start with a background color, then I start to block in some random shapes. Suddenly I see a character in one of my shapes and I start to add some rough paint strokes to play with the silhouette. But then again the character looks more like a tree or some kind of rock. So I just continue to paint and the image is always changing. This process is really fun.
Robin asked me for some tips and trick so here are some things you should keep in mind while painting.
1. Backgroundcolor
I rarely start with a white canvas. Cause white is the brightest color. If white is already your backgroundcolor, it's often times hard to handle the values in your painting. You can only go darker but you have no option to go into the highlight areas cause you already have the brightest color as your background. So a good thing is to start with a midtone. The color or value of your background is also dependent on your environment. So when I would like to paint something like a forest by daylight I would tend to use a brownish or greenish midtone as a background color. When I paint something dark and cool I start out with a dark blue or gray background.
2. Values
In the foreground you have usually the highest contrast. The darkest darks and the brightest brights. The farther things are away from your viewpoint the lower is the contrast. When you are in the stage where you block in your shapes, keep that in mind.
You will see in the tutorial that the rocks in the background have almost the same value as the sky and the color is only slightly different form each other.
Then again the foreground has a strong contrast with the dark rocks. They pop forward.
Here is an example I just did in 5min.
The decreasing contrast and the decreasing size of the objects gives you a sense of depth in the image. Using grayscales is a great way to study values.
3. Highlights
When you have no experience in using colors, you will notice that you tend to use white for the highlights. But when you observe highlights you will see that they are rarely white. In sunlight for example the highlights are very saturated. That doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to use white highlights, cause metallic objects often have bright white highlights. Just remember that dependent on the material and the lighting highlight colors can vary a lot.
The wooden beam below shows what I mean. The highlight area is a saturated light brown.
4. Start Rough and Fast end Detailed and Slow
When you are painting it is important to keep it rough at the beginning. Work on the whole painting all the time. Don't struggle with details.
In this example I did a painting using a reference photo in about 30min.
Reference Image
Speed Painting
So try to be fast and loose at the beginning. It's harder than it sounds ^^
5. Painting from reference images
As I said in the post before, it helped me a lot painting from reference to understand values, colors and light. I think it is a pretty good way to learn how colors and light work together. An important thing when you paint from reference images is not to pick the colors with the eyedropper tool. Try to see the colors with your own eyes and pick the colors by yourself.
When you pick the colors always ask yourself why you decide to pick this certain color. 'why do you use this dark gray for the skin tone in the shadow' or 'why do you use a saturated orange for the forest ground' etc.
Paint with a time limit around 30min up to one hour. If the painting looks ugly even after an hour don't worry about it, save your work and try to be better next time. The more mistakes you do the more you learn out of them. Number your images so you can always look back and see your progress.
For example:
sp_0001_image title
sp_0002_image title
etc.
I did around 30 paintings from reference back in the days. And did some paintings of my own in between using the experience I gained through the reference images. And suddenly I could create moods without using reference images. That was an awesome moment ^^
As long as you practice you will get better and better. Just keep that in mind.
The points I mentioned above helped me improve my painting skills very quickly.
Hope it might help some people out there as well!
And here is the painting I did today. As I said, I did a screen caputre of this one but the capture file was corrupt so no video...sorry T.T
over and out ^^
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sketchbook Pages...and Speedpaint Workshop
sketching while playblasting my animations ^^
The flu is almost gone. I'm feeling kind of good but it's getting really cold lately...Yesterday I had to scratch off the ice from my car windows T.T
I'm still practicing guitar like crazy...my left hand hurts but I use it only for my keyboard shortcuts anyways, so it doesn't matter that much. ^^v
Last monday I did a little painting workshop here at the Filmakademie where I work.
Every monday there is a Sketch Round arranged by my buddy David Maas. This time he had the idea to do a digital speedpaint session using photo reference.
When I started painting digitally back in the days, it helped me a lot to paint from photo references to get a basic understanding of color, values and light.
So we thought it would be a nice exercise for the students to start of using reference images.
Before we started, I talked about some speedpainting techniques.
Everyone had a timelimit of 30minutes
The students did really great and I was really exited that so many people participated. We will continue to do those painting sessions.
This was my 30min painting.
The flu is almost gone. I'm feeling kind of good but it's getting really cold lately...Yesterday I had to scratch off the ice from my car windows T.T
I'm still practicing guitar like crazy...my left hand hurts but I use it only for my keyboard shortcuts anyways, so it doesn't matter that much. ^^v
Last monday I did a little painting workshop here at the Filmakademie where I work.
Every monday there is a Sketch Round arranged by my buddy David Maas. This time he had the idea to do a digital speedpaint session using photo reference.
When I started painting digitally back in the days, it helped me a lot to paint from photo references to get a basic understanding of color, values and light.
So we thought it would be a nice exercise for the students to start of using reference images.
Before we started, I talked about some speedpainting techniques.
Everyone had a timelimit of 30minutes
The students did really great and I was really exited that so many people participated. We will continue to do those painting sessions.
This was my 30min painting.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
Wheeler
Uuh....I have the flu....
I felt terrible the last two days. It's hard to concentrate at work...
Everyone seems to be sick right now.
anyways here is today's painting.
I felt terrible the last two days. It's hard to concentrate at work...
Everyone seems to be sick right now.
anyways here is today's painting.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Model Making Exhibition
Today I went to the Model Making Exhibition in Stuttgart with my buddies Holger, Daniel and Eggi. There was a lot of facinating stuff: All kinds of radio controled vehicles, boats, zeppelins etc...It was a huge exhibition
I loved the radio controled helicopters.
The miniature trains and railways were awesome as well.
Highly realistic and very detailed models.
I had a great time at the exhibition and can recommend it to anyone who loves model making and technical stuff.
