Date of Birth:
July 1976
Hair:
Yes. Brown (still).
Eyes:
Two. Also brown.
Nationality: German
Languages: German, English, Spanish

People asking me how I got to be game-illustrator are surprised when they hear that I started out as comic artist. My illustration career started out with Kopeck, a 3-issue action comic mini-series published by Karicartoon a small independent publisher in Hanover (Germany) in 1999. A full colour action comic is quite a lot of work but I am very thankful for that amazing opportunity. I gained a lot of drawing experience that way which paved my way to where I am now. In 2000 I attended the annual SPIEL Game Fair in Essen (Germany) or rather the area reserved for comics. I had finished my mini-series and my skills had improved vastly but still I was certain that I had a long way to go to get paid work. While it took until 2008 to draw a full book again, getting into role-playing games (RPG) was easier. A friend led me over to the RPG part of the Spiel fair and I showed my portfolio to companies like Fantasy Flight Games. In the case of FFG the editor liked a lot of my art pieces and gave me his business card. Two months later I received my first commissioned work enquiry from the United States. I was thrilled! Enormously motivated I started working on this first job and everything went well, but still I was weary whether I would find more work in the future…

At that time I got into contact with Germany’s dark fantasy magazine Mephisto. My style suited the Shadowrun articles perfectly so I became the standard illustrator for that section in Mephisto. This proved to be a good training because I was approached to co-illustrate a new book for the original Shadowrun system by the German SR-producers in summer 2001. I see this as my break-through into professional illustration.

I knew if I could do this I was on the right track also in terms of improving my artistic skills. This inevitably led me into contact with the American producers with whom I have done several books so far. (My first SR cover was “Shadows of Europe” for Fanpro USA followed by many more for Battletech.)
In early 2003 I decided to go pro, halting my studies of English, Spanish and Economics at Bielefeld University after occasional illustration jobs turned more and more into steady and repeated commissions. September 2003 brought my first international comic publication with a six-pager in Heavy Metal magazine and from issue #23 of Mephisto I started serving as the Magazine’s art-director; a great challenge and opportunity to develop new skills and contacts. This work now also covers Tabletop Insider, Germany’s first independent magazine for tabletop games and miniatures.

In late 2003 I moved from Minden to Bielefeld and besides my regular art-jobs I got the chance to provide weapons- and equipment design for the Degenesis RPG released in May 2004 in Germany. This postapokalyptic pen and paper RPG surely is the project I am most proud of so far – there is only a small output of books but I remain one of the lead illustrators on this game line by Christian Günther’s Sighpress Verlag. You can download the entire 380-page rulebook and much more for free(!) on www.degenesis.de if you want to see what got me hooked on Degenesis.

In 2004 I started to teach Illustration and Comic Art at Bielefeld’s public learning institute VHS (Volkshochschule). My few seminars fills up quickly every year with 20+ aspiring artists from all over Germany. 2009 marks the year of my first seminar at Bielefeld University teaching “Graphic Storytelling” at the English department.

Apart from more work for Heavy Metal 2008 saw my first US comicbook, namely The Transformers Spotlight: Wheelie which received excellent reviews; thanks to English top scribe Simon Furman for a great collaboration on this one. Expect more comics and cover work for San Diego’s premiere comic book publisher IDW in the future. Generally I’ve tried to work in a vast artistic spectrum with concept art jobs for Wizards of the Coast, designing boss monsters for Ascaron in Germany (Sacred II), more covers for novel publishers small an large, advertisement jobs and here and there a comic one shot with authors like Boris Koch, Josef Rother or Levin Kurio.

Turning your hobby into a profession you don’t need that much leisure time and working in the illustration industry makes sure you don’t get it anyway. Social contact is reduced to colleagues and some very good friends. Time for girlfriend or vacation is scarce. Looking for a way to keep my body in shape I practice Aikido at a dojo nearby holding a beginner’s rank of 4th kyu. This is great when you want to do sports but need to keep your body intact, plus it’s effective and looks amazing if executed right. Vacation is whenever I attend San Diego Comic Con or Gencon in the USA or the SPIEL Fair in Essen to sign books, sell art and meet friends. In the future I hope to develop my creative abilities, do more colour work, do more concept art for computer games, and indeed draw more comics. Like many artists I’m also working on a creator owned comic series in my free time but don’t expect to hear more from that before the design work on that is completed and the first pages go to the printer. So many ideas and inclinations, so little time.