"old friends"

I created this "portrait thingy" called "old friends" today as a little relief from the thesis stuff I did during the past few months. It's kind of a sequel to "decisions"; it depicts the grey bearded one and the guardian many years after the man found that poor creature in the cave. I liked the idea to fast forward a bit, since it tells you some stories they've experienced in the past just by looking at the two. Hope you like it.

thesis: "Roadside Picnic", a sci-fi graphic novel

I am finally back, bringing you the results of my work of the last three months. Believe it or not, but this is actually my thesis! The task, which I chose myself, was to transform my beloved sci-fi novel "Roadside Picnic" by Arkadi and Boris Strugatzky into a graphic novel (if you remember, I created "Red" and "Monkey" related fan art about three years ago). Since it really took quite a while to do the cover artwork (they are intended to be printed at a minimum size of DIN A2, most likely even bigger so you can almost walk into the pores and hide between these wrinkles) and because I drew all the sample pages with a ballpen (part of the concept), I don't have that much to show but I am very satisfied with the outcome. I will try to contact publishers about this and want to find out who's the current owner of the original rights. Maybe this is going somewhere.

Just so you know, I created three prototypes, one page page for each and a 140 pages "Making of" artbook. I plan to finish another cover artwork around feb 2014 and maybe another page, or even more pages for the oral exam and the exhibition afterwards. Hope you like 'em.

EDIT: Here's the Russian version (thanks for this goes to a friend of mine). Since I like the Cyrillic script a lot in these panels (and since it's a Russian book ;)), I replaced the German version (which is now linked underneath) with the Russian one. An English version will be added shortly.

english version

german version

english version

german version

english version

german version

here are some wip and detail shots for you:

"decisions"

i did this "comic strip one page short story thing" called "decisions" today as a small distraction, actually a nice little relief from what i am curently working on. i will not tell you what to read out of it exactly, because that's actually what i like most about it:
you are not forced to believe only one way to understand it, there are at least two potential background storys i came up with for "decisions", even if i like one more, i leave it open to interpretation - it's your call, like all the decisions you are forced to make in such a post-disaster survival world...

oh and if you like the style, i highly recommend "the long dark" by hinterland games. it's an awesome game developed by some really talented people who united to be "hinterland games". the game just got funded (yes, i lost my "backer-up-virginity" on this one - you can call me official backer now!). if you watch the in-game alpha stuff and first concepts they released you can tell, that i was really inspired by the art direction, mainly by the awesome company logo... that red fox is so calm but somehow also energetic and wild. i really like it. when i first saw it some weeks ago i instantly had this small idea in my mind and had to draw it straight away but did not find the time to do so - a background story for that fox so to say. today i finally got the chance to realize my little concept secretly... i started with one small panel and wanted to just add another one, but then it became a no-brainer and ended as a page. even if i lost some hours now, i think it's worth it...

had to be told, don't you think? hope you like it.

birthday present: "milestone"

last week my mom turned 50! CELEBRATION! ;)

this is my present for her. for this painting i used an old photo as a reference. i am about two years old and my mother around twenty-three... i like it alot.
my godmother took the photo back in the days in our garden in front of a white sheet hanging on a clothesline. hope you like it.

The Last of Us fan art: "Joel"

JOEL FAN ART ("the last of us")

since i contributed a 2D image for that "itsartmag" contest, i thought it's a good chance to get better in 3D for this one: a 3D sculpt of joel (if you don't know him, you should play more video games!). it is my second ZBrush bust ever, so this one was really time consuming for me. i did one other bust before, and two or three models for a mod, but i am really new to 3D and learn a lot while doing this one. a lot of trial and error, going back and forth etc..

the first one is called "endure and survive" and the second one "you'd just come after her". added a black and white version too, suits the original artworks more. ;)

sculpted from a sphere, polypainted textures, all wrinkles and dermal-details are hand-drawn inside ZBrush too.
main hair, eyelashes, beard and eyebrows are fibermeshes (first time usage).
rendered it in ZBrush (since ZBrush is the only 3D software i own), composed the passes in photoshop. hope you like.

--------
"endure and survive" prints, t-shirts, hoodies, tank tops, cards, cases and bags
available HERE

now available for purchase!

art prints, t-shirts and other products are now available for purchase! at last! some of my artwork is on sale now at Society6! was actually easier than i thought. here you can buy (framed) prints, cases and skins for your iphones and pods, search for shirts, hoodies and bags. there's even a pillow to put that smile on! :D

a lot of people wanted prints for "hotline miami", "sword & sworcery", "the foundling" and "the joker"... there you go! please have a look, i hope there's something for you too.

http://society6.com/DavidsKopfstoff

i will put some more stuff that suits walls and t's up there in the next time, but feel free to tell me what else you want to see on that Society6-profile!
thank you and happy shopping!

commission: "LA RANA PLATANERA"

here's a more recent job i did for a friend. he's DJ'ing and wanted to have a logo and some mascots. yes, the squirrel is wearing a "dustman suit"! it's because the guy i did this for and his crew do the same when they perform... the distinctive feature so to say. "LA RANA PLATANERA" means more or less "the banana frog", that explains the rest i guess. lot's of confetti, bling-bling and fairies stuff paired with awesome music happening there. can't wait to see those drawings in black light. ;)

berserk fanart: "the golden age"

finally i got the time to finish this one. it is a reinterpretation of a comic page that really affected me! i knew that there's a manga series out there called "berserk" years before i finally started to read it. straight! yeah, seriously. there was no break possible after i checked out the two first books... it's that great. the way miura tells this story, how he works up religion, friendship, moral, war and its intrigues is unlikely anything else i've seen before. there's tension, sorrow, humor, horror and beauty. the characters and the world he has created, his drawings are really extraordinaire! i normally don't like mangas, but this one is an exception.

if you're more into watching animes -> "studio 4°C" is actually doing a new animated series based on it... i love it so far, even if they had to cut a lot. you have to check it out!

if you're interested, here's the original page.

internship poster project: "make sense"

i did this for university. the task was to document and summarize the personal internship via a poster. there was a small vernissage for the prints, with podium-speech and even a prize-giving... i won! it's a "compulsory event", means you have to do that poster and since i really wanted to make a clear statement here, it took me some time from sketch to finish (you can see some early sketch versions and a 100% zoom of my face beside the finished piece above). i think it's self-explaining and clearly illustrates the clash between a naive expected fiction, pure ideology and reality: the cold truth of the good old ruling industry. it was exhausting, instructive and tough but most of all really a lot of fun. i hope you like it.

two boss concepts

two "video game boss concepts" i did months ago. one slightly ridiculous and one a bit more serious version as you can see. i really like the second one (although the other guy has that bad-ass fire trident i knooow!). there's also a sketchy explanation for you guys. hope you like it!

sketches: "on the train"

some outcome of six months traveling by train every day. i really had to force me to get that paper out and draw instead of just listening to music, watch the landscape or simply sleep till arrival. it's such a strange moment when people actually notice that they're portrayed... even more if you go on after "getting caught". :D

christmas 2012: "der weiße wolf"

did this small wolf drawing for my girlfriend (fineliner on paper). i drew it inside the book "der weiße wolf" (= "the white wolf"), which she received as a gift. childhood memories and i still love that book today. it is a fantastic fable with beautiful b&w drawings inside, similar to the style i've chosen here. it wasn't easy to get the first edition of that book since it's out of print now. the new version come with a really ugly "trash cover" but what's actually much more worse: without any drawings inside. after i received and sent back that trash version, i finally managed to get the original first edition from 1982/83 in mint condition (the same version my mom read to me as a child). i read it to her from time to time after waking up at the weekends... awesome flashbacks!