ILLUSTRATION

Just published! The new energy magazine for which I regularly illustrate the cover:

This is how I do it:

So mache ich es:

Energy is a big theme in the German media. The chaos in the energy legislation gave rise to this illustration for a double page magazine spread as an intro to a long article.

Energie ist ein grosses Thema in den Deutschen Medien. Das Chaos in der Gesetzgebung war der Hintergrund zu dieser Illustration. Sie diente als Basis für einen doppelseitigen Aufmacher zu einem Zeitschriftenartikel.

I don't admire many politicians, but Helmut Schmidt always came across as being wise and well-balanced. Here's my portrait of him.

Normalerweise bewundere ich Politiker nicht, aber Helmut Schmidt machte mir immer einen Eindruck der Weisheit und der Ausgeglichenheit. Hier ist mein Porträt von ihm:

A recent illustration from a suspense reader for a publisher in Berlin:

Eine kürzlich erstellte Illustration aus einer Spannungs-Lektüre für einen Berliner Verlag:

A new illustration from a series for a King-Arthur-adventure for a publisher in Stuttgart:

Eine neue Illustration aus einer Reihe für ein König-Artus-Abenteuer für einen Verlag in Stuttgart:

A phase in the drawing:

Frederick Douglass was born a slave. He learned to read and write in a time when was against the law to teach a slave to become literate. He became an American social reformer, orator and writer for the causes of the abolition of slavery and the rights of women and held many public offices. Here's my portrait of him:

Lost in the USA, die Abenteuer eines in den USA gekidnappten deutschen Jungen, der schnell Englisch lernen muss, ist nun vom Klett Verlag veröffentlicht worden. Hier einige meiner Illustrationen dazu:

Lost in the USA, the adventures of a German youngster kidnapped in the USA who has to learn English very quickly, has been published by Klett. Here are some of my illustrations for the book:

Magazine illustrations

I illustrate the cover and some inside motifs for a quarterly German banking magazine. This issue had the competition for raw materials as it's theme:

This is one of a series of portraits I'm doing for a poster which will be appearing 2013.

Its been a few months since I posted any new works, so here is a small selection from the heap:

This is one of a series of 8 black and white illustrations for a short story with 4 kids on the river. I like being restricted to b/w because you're forced to reduce things and use contrast.

A beach scene for a school book.

These are some frames I did recently for a film commercial.

Quite a few different characters were required in this picture. The guy in the foreground is saying something inappropriate which gives the game away.

This is a cover illustration for a teen adventure story which takes place in a football camp in Spain. I play in goal, so I know how the keeper feels!

Its about time I posted some new material, so here are a few recent illustrations:

These are two of a series of illustrations for a fantasy adventure with native American spirits...

...with a romantic ending!

A couple of storyboard frames for an over-the-counter throat medecine.

An illustration for a teenage crime story involving polluting criminals.

This is a mascot figure for a product which protects

against infections. In the print ads the genie

holds parents and two children in his arms.

Here are three new illustrations I did for teenage crime thrillers:

Tension at breakfast

Back alley warning

Digital painting

I did this digital portrait in Photoshop using layers and a number of brushes of my own construction.

How I work

An illustration usually consists of 4 phases. The first phase is a careful reading of the brief. Phase 2 is a very rough scribble of how I could depict the scene while both taking account of all the points in the brief and putting my own spin on the drama, perpective or dynamics. Sometimes there are a couple of phase 2's. When I'm satisfied that phase 2 works, I do a cleaner, more detailed drawing (phase 3), taking care of faces, body language and the setting. The colouring, phase 4, is then done in layers.

All of these stages are done in Photoshop on a Wacom Cintiq. No paper or pencils have been hurt in the making of these illustrations.