Experiencing Interaction

Here is again an experiment involving illustration and motion that I made just for fun, using images from the book Onkel Alois - Abenteuer am Himmelsstern.

The idea was to give "a touch" of animation to my drawings – by the way, a huge thanks to webdev.stephband.info for writing the jQuery plugin that made all this possible!

You can see the result - through mouse interaction - by clicking the image below (for a pop-up window), in which you find the charming "Onkel Alois" in his very first flight to the stars!

(click on the image for pop-up interaction!)

Interaction with static image is something that definitely called my attention since the advent of the tablets. I am looking forward to explore more of it in my work from now on!

I hope you enjoy this first start! See ya!

Book Illustrations for "Onkel Alois"!

Hi! My blog update is back!!! I really, really missed this place and I am so glad to come back with great news!

The book I was working on last year was finally published! The title is "Onkel Alois – Abenteuer am Himmelsstern" (in English, "Uncle Alois – An Adventure in the Stars"). The book is ready for purchase – so far available only in German – right here!

It is a wonderful bedtime children's book written by the adorable Gertrude Dober! I was so glad about the invitation to illustrate her charming character, "Onkel" Alois: he is simply amazing! It is impossible not to fall in love with him, I just can’t recommend it enough! ;-)

I am posting here the book cover and a little peek of two chapters – from a total of fifteen I illustrated. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed doing them!

That is all for now!

Good night to everyone, with all the best wishes of dreams in the stars... ★

Experimenting Motion

I just have done some more experiments based in my previous illustration. The result is the animation clip you see here!

Although it is very short and simple, I think it turned out to be a good translation of my work into animation! I specially enjoyed seeing how everything matches well together - just like love at the first sight! ;-)

I will definitely start exploring more of it from now on!

I do hope to seeing you there soon!

Reaching a Step Further!

Hi there!

After a big job (which soon I will be able to share with you!), I had some time available now to finish a personal project.

I loved to do it! When you work on a project of your own, you have the optimal chance to experiment and explore new approaches and workflows - and this is definitely the right time for doing major improvements!

After a long series of experiments and refinements, this time I think I can really say I made a significant improvement in this drawing you see here! :-)

Hope you enjoy it as well!!

(click on the image for more details!)

Safety Tour Poster

Can you believe that I just saw the printed poster of the Safety Tour 2010 now? It was such a great surprise to see this work again after such a long time!

The experience of seeing the outcome of one's own illustration in the "real world" gives us new eyes - everything becomes much clearer!

On the one hand, the work is done: it is not possible to change or to improve it anymore. But, on the other hand, I feel also very much engaged and strongly motivated to work even better next time!

It is such a great feeling... I can´t wait to see the next printed work!

See ya!

Website Update!

Hi there! I have very good news about my website!

In the last few days, I had the opportunity to update the projects' list and to make the website much easier to navigate!
Check it out at www.cuteillustration.com!

This drawing you see here is one of my old favorites! It will not be at the website anymore because I have been producing so many cute angels recently. So, I decided it was worth posting this cute angel one last time here in the blog. I hope you enjoy it as well!

Until next time!

Baptism Angel

One more cute angel for my portfolio!

I made this one for the gift of my nephew's baptism – a cute angel for a cute little baby!

I hope you enjoy it!

Coloring Book

Here you see another fun project I made for the Österreichischer Zivilschutzverband.

After the Safety Tour CD, the Safety Coloring Book with 25 pages of pictures and games has been now published!

It was great to see it printed after all the hard work! I hope the kids will enjoy the book as much as I did making it!

Experimenting 3D

I have been in love with 3D animation since I saw the first Pixar´s animated feature Toy Story – and, of course, all the amazing movies produced since then!

The movie is not only wonderful, but has also brought something new for the visual arts as a whole. Using 3D the Pixar guys have achieved an unique volumetric touch that nobody else had achieved before.

And just because I am insanely obsessed with collecting all kind of different and possible approaches for my own work, I started to learn 3D about a year ago – which I am now finally introducing in my illustrations!

In this image, for instance, I wanted the helmet and the airplane to have this volumetric touch I have talked about (it can specially be seen in the round perspective of the stars in the helmet) – and I am really glad about the way all the elements melt harmoniously together!

It has been my old passion – and my big challenge as well – to fit many different approaches into one single harmonious composition. Here, I hope you also enjoy my new attempt to make it happen!

Safety Tour CD

Hey! I am finally back to the blog - and with great news!

Recently I have been making a lot of interesting work for the Österreichischer Zivilschutzverband´s Safety Tour.

For those who don´t know about this organisation, the Safety Tour (www.safety-tour.at) is a huge summer event for kids here in Austria. Every year different schools take part in a big contest with a lot of funny games, so that children can learn about security.

I am very happy I had the opportunity to take part in this initiative this year. For instance, this piece is the first realease of the songs they have made specially for the event. Which are, by the way, a great work by Roman Kostrouch and Animations Planet!

There is still more illustration work I am preparing for them, which I will be posting soon!

Making Of

I have been always fascinated about seeing how other artists come up with their images. Beyond the natural curiosity about the creative process and everything that you can learn from it, I think there is something really special about grasping so many hours of work in the blick of an eye! The drawing seems somehow to look much more easier than it really is.

That is why I thought it would be interesting to share with you my own creative process as well. It is a first attempt to contribute to the illustration scene in this very special way that was so inspiring to me. I hope you enjoy it!

In the image you see here I used three diferents graphics editing programs: Illustrator, Painter and Photoshop. In addition, of course, I used a bit of hand drawing too!

The great thing about jumping from one program to the other is, in my opinion, that it enables you to focus on what each program can do better for the one single image you are working in. For instance, I like very much the geometric precision that Illustrator offers to me (3). However, because I also like to have a “paint feeling” approach to my work, I combined the vector drawing I made with some brush work in Painter (4). Finally, nothing can be better than Photoshop for adjusting, mixing and masking different layers, effects and textures (see the final picture).

Despite all the digital possibilities, I feel myself much more confortable with starting all the basic composition with a simple pencil (1). Sometimes I even redraw by hand the “computer version” if I feel something isn´t that right (2). It might seems to be strange to say that, but somehow the "right shapes" seem to come much easier to me while holding a pencil!

Well, I think this is it for the moment! Pretty soon I will be posting different ways I am finding out to come up with my images, so stay tuned!

First Digital Self-Portrait

Hi there!

In this illustration, I used the Corel Painter tools equivalent to the pencil pastels I would normally use in my life drawings. It just felt great to emulate real materials into the computer!

I am currently very excited about further exploring new aspects and possibilities of this astonishing media: the illustration you see here can be regarded as a first step to it!