happy new year!

Although it looks like I'm going to spend new year's eve at home alone and sick in bed, that will not keep me from wishing you all a very happy new year!

English translation might follow later. Right now I'm not well enough for that...

JAZAM! vol. 4

Good news: A new volume of the German indie comics anthology book JAZAM! (of which I'm an editor and a regular contributor) is on the way. The new topic is "MONSTERS".

If you want to participate, read all the necessary info HERE.

transformation animation

An animated short film, done digitally in Flash. I originally did this for a university project involving advertising for a furniture manufacturer. Luckily, it was a fairly open project, so I could do what I wanted, as long as it involved one of their pieces of furniture in some way. And since I wanted to try out hand-drawn animation, I made this:

click here to open .MOV file (better quality)

monsters

Happy Halloween!

lifelines 2

I haven't been posting much (or, like, at all) for the last few weeks because I recently started a five-month internship at HahnFilm, a Berlin-based animation studio, and therefore haven't found much time to work on my own stuff. The internship is lots of fun and pretty challenging, though.

One thing I hadn't shown here yet is this this one year-old entry in my Lifelines series:


This one is a colored variant of an older one which was made into a screenprint:

first page of new sci-fi comic

This is the first page of a short, somewhat trashy sci-fi comic I've been working on for a while. It was originally intended to be published in Perry - unser Mann im All but since they didn't like it, the comic's going to be printed in the new sci-fi magazine Ferne Welten with a few changes. However, since Ferne Welten is going to be printed in black & white, I am not going to color the rest of the pages. The coloring on this page isn't entirely finished either, but I just wanted to show it to make the work feel a little less in vain. ;)


EDIT: the comic's gonna be published in color after all, so I just uploaded the final version of the page. I don't really like the style anymore, though...

hipsters

Some quickly colored character design scribbles:

last life drawings of the semester

These are some of the sketches from the last two weekly life drawing sessions of the summer semester, which is going to end in a few days. The first two drawings are longer poses (ca. 10 minutes) and the others short 1-minute scribbles.

comics creator survey

I haven't had a lot of content on this blog lately (due to university-related work overload, combined with enormous laziness) so I decided to bore you with my answers to a comics creator survey I stumbled across on Bryan Lee O'Malley's Livejournal. The questions are originally by Jake Hopper.

PART ONE: COMICS PERSONALITY TYPE

Name:
Adrian vom Baur

Age:
22

Sign:
Scorpio

Introverted or extroverted?
Actually, when I was in school, I once made some test that was supposed to determine just that and ended up exactly in the middle. Which seems about right.

What are your top 5 procrastination tools?
1. watching movies
2. internet
3. riding my bicycle
4. reading comics
5. watching movies (and tv series)

What gets your juices flowing?
If I knew that I would probably be more productive.


PART TWO: COMICS CONSUMER

What kind of comics do you like to read?
Pretty much all kinds. I like anything that has some kind of a distinct artistic voice or is simply fun to read, no matter what genre or style.

What kind of comics do you dislike?
I don't like comics that feel like they've been created by a commercial assembly line, which mostly concerns mangas and superheroes. I don't generally dislike either of those, though.

When were you first introduced to comics?
My parents had books with Donald Duck comics by Carl Barks which I devoured as soon as I coud read.

What were some of your first comics?
Besides the Disney stuff, I really dug some of the French and Belgian classics such as Tintin, Asterix and Spirou.

When did you first get "The spark"?
The thing that re-awakenend my interest in comics as a teenager was mangas, specifically Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Battle Angel Alita.

What is your favorite animated movie?
It's difficult to name just one. As a kid it used to be Aladdin, but now I guess it's either one of my Miyazaki favourites (Princess Mononoké and Spirited Away), or one of Brad Bird's masterpieces (The Iron Giant and The Incredibles).

What is your favorite anime series?
Does "Avatar" count? "Cowboy Bebop" kind of rocks, too.


PART THREE: COMICS CREATOR

What kind of comics do you make?
I haven't really decided for any specific style or topic yet. So, currently, whatever kind I feel like.

When did you first start making comics?
As soon as I could hold a pencil and draw a stick figure, really. At first, I stapled paper together, drew only one panel per page, and my parents had to write the words in the speech bubbles. In grade school, I started to do "proper" paneling and write the words myself.

What are your favorite comic artists right now?
Craig Thompson, Bryan Lee O'Malley and Jeff Smith, among others. I also still really dig Barks.

What are your main influences in comics?
I have lots of influences. The ones I named above, but also Eisner, Hergé, Mignola, Tezuka, Franquin, Watterson, Mawil, Flix, Barbucci and many of the artists in "Flight".

Artistically?
The same as above, I guess? Plus all kinds of old and current animation artists.

Who do you admire in comics?
People who are more productive than me, which means just about anyone these days.

Is there something you want to say?

A somewhat autobiographical single page comic I drew almost a year ago:

drawing nudes again

Some new life drawings from the last several weeks:

self destruction

A short stop-motion animated video I did for university about a year ago.



Music by Muse.

JAZAM! in Erlangen

My extensive photo report on the comic con in Erlangen can be read on the JAZAM! blog. Check it out!

Comic Duel 2008 - rounds three and four

My other two entries for the "Comic Duel 2008". Sadly, none of these made much of an impression on the jury. I only got trough the third round because the entry of my opponent wasn't that strong either.

Entry three. The topic was "Stroke of Genius".

This one probably really isn't that good. Translation of the text: "Oh, if only this were a stroke of genius instead of a stroke of lightning," Mr. W thought and passed away.
See the other entries and the jury's comments here.

The topic of the last round was "For a Fistful of Dollars":

Translation: "Darling? Do you love me only because of my personality or also because I'm filthy rich?" - "Personality." - "OK."
I kinda liked that one. The last round was held live on the Comic-Salon Erlangen and the jury didn't really take a lot of time to even read the texts of the finalists, so they were quite quick to kick this one out. Read the report on the finale here.

The Comic-Salon was lots of fun and there's going to be an exhaustive report on it on the JAZAM! blog sometime in the next few days.

JAZAM! vol. 3 - preorder now!

Almost a year has passed since the second volume of the indie comics anthology book JAZAM! came out, and we're currently printing volume three, which will be finished in time for the Comic-Salon Erlangen in two weeks.

The topic this time is "TIME", and I drew (and wrote!) an 8-page story about time bombs. One of the pages can be seen here.

This is the amazing cover by Daniela Uhlig:

Volume 3 is available for pre-ordering now at our website.
We already have plenty of previews on our new blog.

Comic Duel 2008 - rounds one and two

In the tradition of the "Spacken" contests, there's a new comics competition going on, the "Comic Duel 2008." I have participated and already moved on to the third round. These are my first two entries:

Entry one. The topic was "The Evil Eye".

The jury actually kinda liked this one (which is unusual, because they normally don't ever admit to like anything). The other entries from round one.

Round two. Topic: "Sword of Damocles"

The words in the bubble translate to "Do you want to go out with me?" This one wasn't so popular with the jury, but I still managed to make it to the next round. See the other entries from round two.

I will post the next entries when they're finished.

JAZAM! vol. 3 preview

I finally finished my 8-page story for the third volume of the great anthology book JAZAM! Here's a page (the 2nd) from it:

Some of the later pages are better, I think, but I don't want to spoil too much of the story. ;)
I've also shown this on the JAZAM! blog, along with some other cool previews.

JAZAM! vol. 3 - work in progress

I am currently working on an 8-page story for the third volume of the comics anthology book JAZAM!, of which I'm also an editor. The deadline is only one week away and I still have lots of pages to draw and ink. This time, I wrote the story all by myself and I'm drawing in a style that's more stylized than anything I've done before. I hope it turns out alright. Today, I photographed some of the pages and scribbles:

music news

Anyone in Munich reading this? If yes, I'm playing a concert with my new band Affection Play, this saturday at 5 pm.
All info can be found on our MySpace page and this flyer:


There also is a (relatively) new song from my other band Synapsengeflüster, called "Eure Tage sind gezählt" (lyrics by me), which can be heard on that band's MySpace profile.
Something else I hadn't shown yet, an illustrated CD cover for the Synapsengeflüster song Der Egozentriker:

movie posters

At university, I designed and illustrated this series of posters for fictional movies last semester for a subject called foto illustration.

new life drawing stuff

Some new life drawing sketches from a few weeks ago. These are more linear than usual because I used mainly felt tip pens and a brush pen.

cooking bird & self caricature

Am I productive these days or what? I just finished two little just-for-fun illustrations today, both with traditional inking (I usually do it digitally).
The first one is a little experiment with a new style and colored outlines:


This one is a self caricature (I don't think I look that ugly in real life):

JAZAM! Blog

The official JAZAM! weblog is now finally online. Check it out here: http://www.jazam.de/blog

bestiary website

The following was a small project for my web design class at university. The task was to design a site with 4 sub-sites, images, and texts, that was centered and fit the topic "bestiary". Although it wasn't obligatory, I did all the illustrations and texts myself.

The site can be found here: Kleines Bestiarium

assorted nudes

Yup, life drawing again.