'til 5 am

Happy Feet Two opens in the U.S today

2011-11-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Feet Two hits theaters in the U.S. today. I hope it does well so that Dr D Studios and George Miller will be able to make more movies... it was a great team, the Studio treated us well and I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

Happy Feet 2

2011-08-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, time flies... here's a short recap what I've been up to lately:

Right now I'm working at Dr.D Studios on Happy Feet 2, which will be released November 18. Check out those pics and the second trailer.
Before that I traveled Australia with my girlfriend, doing some remote jobs on the way: helped animating the Australian FIFA World Cup bid and the Baby Peas Superbowl commercial.

Mail for Santa

2010-12-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

Ever wondered why you didn't get the presents you ordered from Santa Claus? (watch it in HD on youtube)
This is another one for illustration friday... on a pretty tight schedule, so it turned out to be more of an animatic than an actual animation. I hope you still like it - maybe I can smooth it out for next year... and even add a German version.

Btw, procrastination is a good friend of mine, too (isn't it sometimes weird, that things we really care about don't get done, because we want to deal with them properly when we have time and not rush them right now). But I just read a book (GTD by David Allen) and hope the suggestions will help getting more stuff done like this little short film.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everybody!

beneath (illustration friday)

2010-10-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

I was going for a mole-disco when I realized Christy B. had done something similar. That is why poor little penguin got pushed beneath a falling piano...

(Don't worry, he'll be ok - flattened out, he'll waddle to the side and pop to normal size just like every good cartoon character would) ...another one for Illustration Friday.

Das zweite Wunder von Loch Ness

2010-09-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

On German tv next Tuesday (Sep 28). It's about that little, a bit ugly but lovely killer-dwarf protecting the secret of Loch Ness. Animating on that one was a lot of fun - a friend started a studio on the farm of his parents: lots of green, horse-riding, boat trips,...
(© for the pic: Chris Hirschhaeuser - Sat1)

proverb (illustration friday)

2010-09-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

History repeats itself... but it takes all sorts to make a world (or a sentence).
Btw, textorizer is pretty cool!

Roadtrippin' Australia

2010-09-11T02:53:00.000-07:00

...still traveling Australia. Some random pics and words can be seen on kangaroochaos.blogspot.com

craving (illustration friday)

2009-06-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

Have you seen "Little Red Hot Riding Hood"? It's a great Tex Avery short from 1943. The makers of "The Mask" obviously have - Jim Carrey has a craving for Cameron Diaz. My mixed memories of those two films lead me to painting this green version of Mr. Wolf - hope you like it.
...another one for Illustration Friday.

photos from Cambodia and Thailand

2009-06-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

We've seen quite a few spiders, snakes and skorpions... fortunately got bitten by monkes and leeches only.
Here you can find some pics of the trip.

Magnicifant says Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

I was wondering what a little magnific elephant could be looking like on Christmas (just a pun we had a lot of fun with the other day).

Lilli the Witch

2008-11-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

There's a teaser of Lilli the Witch online, as well as a small trailer and a couple of pictures. The movie is about a girl called Lilli who wants to become a witch and Hector (the tiny dragon), who helps her in her quest.
I animated a couple of shots of Hector (one of them can be seen in the mentioned trailer - its the one corresponding to the pic above this post).

vac ant

2008-11-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Vac Ant always hated to vacuum-clean after the queens' orgies. That you could see a huge difference before and after cleaning made it satisfactory, though.
(another one for illustration friday)

dh available on dvd

2008-09-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Dragon Hunters (Die Drachen Jäger (German)) DVD can be preordered at amazon.fr and amazon.de. Again, that was one of my favorite projects to work on... kind of sad if this means there won't be a theatrical release anywhere outside Europe.
Well I guess it happens sometimes that you work on something you identify with that gets no attention at all and other pieces that you (and everybody else working on it) think are crap get marketed well and sell big time...

some recent animation work

2008-09-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

...long time no type. Here we go again - a little update on what I've been up to the last couple of weeks.
Right now I'm working on a Mr. Clean tv-commercial for Spain and Italy. Before that I did some viral stuff including some more animation on the cups www.tassen.tv (German dialogue) as well as this blue bear for selectblinds www.selectblinds.com or at www.youtube.com
which I think turned out ok considering the tight schedule.

leap

2008-03-03T15:21:00.000-08:00

this is an animation from my new website: www.til5.com. It kind of fits the leap topic at illustrationfriday - have fun with your mouse (rollover&click)

Dragonhunters trailer and website

2008-01-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

Check out the new Dragon Hunters trailer! Again, I was having a ball working on that feature in 2006/2007 - especially with Pixar-pro Kyle Balda as animation supervisor. I learned so much. And I do think it is (animationwise at least) the best full-cg-feature produced in Europe so far.
Take a look at my previous Dragonhunters post for more details.

new Donkey Xote trailer

2007-12-13T08:10:00.001-08:00

There's a new Donkey Xote trailer and webpage online. It's a 3D feature I animated some shots for in 2006 - seems like it hit theaters in Spain, finally.

grow

2007-10-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Mr. Inch Worm needs a bigger house to hide from the bird... now!
I found those wallpaper patterns on squidfingers.com and decided to use them for IllustrationFriday.

o pen

2007-10-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

As you can see, it's the begging sheets of paper that make me draw - not the confidence in my drawing skills... another doodle for Illustrationfriday.

Tanzania Safari

2007-10-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks I slept between buffaloes and hippos, met a Maasai with six wives and twenty-six children, fought with monkeys for my lunch and experienced the slowest internet connections on the planet... in Tanzania.
Here are some pictures I took during the trip

missing

2007-08-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Miss Ing was missing the realization that she would always mis-sing. Her dog Deaffy didn't seem to mind, neither her lack of talent nor visibility.

My second illustration for Illustration Friday (ballpen and Photoshop)

honeyMoon

2007-08-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

Mr. H. Moon is supposed to deliver a speech about job satisfaction next friday...

I need to improve on my drawing skills - so I decided to doodle every now and then for Illustration Friday (just in case you don't know IF: it's an awesome resource for inspiration, having so many different interpretations of one subject).

new 58 com

2007-07-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

Fiftyeight is a company I worked for quite a few times - and probably will in the future. I also helped animating that big yellow guy for their new website (did most of the idle animations like pecking, ballet and such). Check it out at www.fiftyeight.com. You might want to use a fast machine to get to watch fluid animations.

Dragon Hunters rule!

2007-05-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Dragon Hunters is a 3d feature I'm doing animation for... it's by far the coolest project I ever worked on!
There's a 2d tv-series about the Dragon Hunters that you can watch some episodes of at cartoon network (if you live inside the US). If not you can see the intro on youtube (music by The Cure). Two of those dragons will have an appearance in the 3d feature as well.

There's actually a pretty old trailer around (produced by another company back then). It still kind of shows the direction our movie is heading for. The layout artists rock, too - look at those beautiful backgrounds!
Another location for trailer and designs would be the page of Guillaume Ivernel (goto projects - Dragon Hunters)

Urmel on DVD

2007-03-10T15:30:00.000-08:00

Urmel comes to your home! The Urmel aus dem Eis - DVD is available for purchase on amazon. Maybe you want to check out some pics and clips first.
That's what I did most of 2005 - animation on Urmel aus dem Eis...