Painted Steel

Devil in Disguise

2012-01-24T23:31:00.002+01:00

During the Custombike 2011, the Devil pinstripe got finished finally.
I like the multicolored flames (thanks to Horst Heiler to pushing me to do them) and lettering.
This one went unbelievably quick...

Erlebnis Motorrad in Mannheim 2012

2012-01-13T21:17:00.000+01:00

Painted Steel will be in Mannheim for the first time - again with U.S. Custombikes.
The show will take place from 16th -18th March 2012.
We will do live Bodypainting on stage and pinstripe at our booth.
If you have something to be pinstripe, do not hesitate to contact me upfront or just drop your stuff at the booth.

Sportster Gas Tank Custom Paint Job - Le Coq

2012-01-02T07:11:00.001+01:00

Done with a huge brush and One-Shot Enamel.

The current topic 'du jour are cocks/coqs/Gockel/Hähne....
They are everywhere you have a look for interesting graphics (Tattoos, Illustration, advertisement....). They are the perfect metaphor for a male society as the biking scene. Or whatever testosterone driven movement.

I had a white Sporster Tank lying around and wanted to do paint such an animal.

Done with a huge brush and One-Shot Enamel.

2011 was a good year

2011-12-31T07:54:00.000+01:00

2011 turned out to be a good year:
I started to pinstripe again, produced some good work, had success in my dayjob, met many inspiring people, some of whom I made friends with or hadn't seen for a long time.
I also tried to revive my blog and updated it more often than before.
Hopefully I can keep this up and get more information on my blog more frequently in 2012.
A funny sidenote:
Having watched closely the statistics for my blog, I figured it has about 10 to 15 views from the US checking out my flour sack animation - not my custom paint work, not the pinstriping or other stuff. just the old sketches about the floursack... The majority of visitors come from the US - seems like me blogging in English is steering my blog more towards the US folks rather than zee Germans.

I wish everybody out there a successful 2012 - may all your dreams come true.
Michel

Paintjob gone bad

2011-12-30T21:57:00.001+01:00

The first time I did a candy paintjob on top of an awesome golden metallic base with perl glitter went massively bad.

I was so hyped up by the way the brandywine came out on the tank that i forgot that the customer was not into red and requested root beer instead...There was supposed to be a blue pinstriping line and a fancy black/white Logo added after a layer of clearcoat.

To make the long story short, the half finished paint job was covered in black in order to make it for the show in Bad Salzuflen.

All the swirls took a long time, as I only learned about the trick to do these much easier and quicker from Ingo Kruse during the show in Bad Salzuflen. Thanks Ingo!

I will certainly use the techniques I learned from this job in future work. What did I learn: Brandywine on top off golden metallic gives a crazy effect and is super flashy. Sometimes you loose sometimes you win. Nevermind.

Nice Lettering Job at Custombike Show 2011

2011-12-07T13:24:00.001+01:00

There was a booth with two original Powerplat Choppers at the show and i was so amazed by the simplicity and quality of the lettering jobs on them - the one above was particularly clean & stylish (in terms of font choice). Definitely something I need to improve on.
Anyway, the tendency in terms of style was 70's Metalflake with simple Candy colors on top, simple paintjobs with some striping. Only Kodlin showcased all his bikes with overly complex pictoral paintjobs done by Marcel Sinnwell. This is an interesting concept and Marcel's work is excellent - no doubt. The trend just goes into another direction and I am carefully watching it.

Bad Salzuflen Custombike 2011 - our booth

2011-12-06T21:08:00.001+01:00

This is a picture i took in a break between striping. The three boys in the middle are the crew with Udo on the right running the show show. You can vaguely spot my banner with the devil's face in the background.

The lady on the left was lovely - my first customer of the show. Swenja saw me painting a table for the booth and asked me to stripe/letter one for her coworker. She came back several times to check out the stuff I was doing and to chat with the others.

Andre was our Mr. Nice guy at the booth and was able to get very close to all the ladies that visited us :P

Hopefully this show will spark some business for my friend, so he is willing to go to the show next year again.

Custombike 2011 Bad Salzuflen - it's done and over

2011-12-05T23:35:00.001+01:00

The show this year was a real blast.
I had 3 days of painted, fun, laughing, meeting people, talking, making fun with potential customers and bystanders....Overall I would call it a success with having met and exchanged news with Maze, Markus Pfeil, Oliver Paß, Ingo Kruse, Marcel Sinnwell, Udo Kohse and others.
Udo Sacher's booth was great and stood out from the typical business booths.We even had some nice posing on our bikes for free :p.
I will upload a few pictures from the show over the next days and will definitely rework my webpage with new stuff and layout, especially the next weeks. The feedback during the exhibition was great and I feel, I need put more recent stuff on the page (I am so lazy, working with computers at home - I have that stuff at work all day). Take care.

Stil longer hair.

2011-11-16T13:24:00.001+01:00

My hairdresser convinced me to not go for the Gung-Ho approach and dismiss all pain, i went through while growing my scalp hair (the rest grows unseen and unnoticed until my wife complains) and keep an intermediate step. During the whole procedure i was very sceptical and gave her a hard look. Yet she was busting her ass off and did a lot of magic on me: using a proper razor blade to thin out the hair and gave her best to make me look slick.
It was not until close to the end of the session that I was convinced this was a hair-do I would like to get out of the chair with. In fact it looks closer to what i was originally looking for than the full scale mob I had on my head for the last few weeks. Still i have the high maintenance, but it looks slick and nice.
Will try to post some pictures soon - as well as some picture of some artwork.

Fink Different

2011-11-08T14:38:00.001+01:00

Originally I was looking for a nice Ed Roth's Rat Fink graphic to decorate my studio.
Not only did I find the picture above, but also on the official website a picture with Ed himself and the text "fink different".
When Rat Fink was invented, 'fink' was the term for weirdos and people outside the cultural norm. Hot rodders, skaters, surfer boys, bikers....
Funny enough the quote 'think different' was used by Apple Computers together with pictures off extraordinary people (Hitchcock, Callas...) to get the attention of the typical Apple User: Bohemians, Artists, Intellectuals. Short for people who wanted to be different for a little bit of extra cash.
With the Apple IPhone, this edge was lost and almost everybody is using Apple products.
The extraordinary became the ordinary. Pop Culture will kill the brand...it is just a matter of time.

For me this particular spelling of the word think hits the nail on the head.
It is time for a change in being different. fink different.

Rock'n Roll Haircut must go

2011-11-06T21:36:00.001+01:00

Almost one year ago, I decided to have my hair grow and take part in the 50's Rock'n Roll Hairstyle craze.

I grew my hair, which was not the hardest part, though. But my hairdresser has more of an understanding of rich Frankfurt Banker's Wanker hairstyle and no idea, what makes a fucking cool looking hair....Well it would be easy to blame it on the hairdresser, as the hairstyle itself has some great advantages. In the morning, you look like a gorilla, when you wake up, with all the hair sticking out from your head. You only need to wash them every second day, but after two days the fucking skin starts itching, so for how long do you keep yourself from the shower. Then it automatically pushes you into a new age category...in Kiev I was estimated as a 'senior' which I counted as an insult. Even my wife told me I remind her of her grandfather (Yes, mission accomplished) - and to be true I was inspired by my grandfather who was kind a motorcycle fan in the 50's, doing trips throughout Germany with his NSU.
He was such a blue collar hardcore mechanic until the end of his days (repairing all kind of agricultural machines and swearing on his good old VW Beetle, always buying old models which enabled him to drive without safety belt) that I saw it as a tribute to him.
But by now I figured that this hairstyle really is for seniors. It does not work for me because of four major reasons: I have a rather dramatical egg shaped head, which combined with the amount of long hair almost pushed me in the Dan Akroyd's conehead category.
Second, I have too much hair...period. This shit grows like crazy and it grows in the wrong direction everywhere. It is not as easy as having the last remaing strands grow and trying to cover the bald back of the head....

Third, I have to put a massive amount of effort into redirecting the hair into the backwards direction. I am not driving a cabrio the whole day, which would ease this task a little. No, I need to spend serious amount of time and chemicals to glue this shit into the shape you see above...Because I have so much hair, I need to put even more effort into the task. (reason four was time and hiding in the last argument).

If the money would just flow into my bank account without the need to work for it and I had the spare time to take care of my hair, I would consider to keep this, but at the moment, I'd rather spend the time on more useful things which bring me closer to my goals. Perhaps even that would be wrong if one would like to have a style which is rooted in the blue collar part of the society.
OK, the hair must go and the reasons in short: too much hair, too much effort, too much time, wrong head and wig shape.
All the reasons above made me decide to go back to the boring, average but slick and quick to achieve Joe Doe hairstyle, until the one day, when my hair is white and sparse and it will be easy to grease it back.
I think I do not need a certain hairstyle to enjoy my life in general and the motorcycle builder and painter scene in particular. How do they say on AFN: Rock'n Roll is just a state of mind.

If someone else thinks differently, I will give them a friendly 'Fuck you very much'.

P.S. looking at the pictures above, I figure that I really have to pay tribute to my age...Damn.
And this is the second random trivia post. But somehow I had to explain, perhaps also to myself, why I need to change..

Custombike 2011 - we will pinstripe live. Bring your stuff.

2011-11-06T21:00:00.001+01:00

From Friday to Sunday, we will be at the booth and work our ass off to satisfy our clients.
If you need a last minute Christmas present for you or your wife, husband, son, dog, whatever, send me a quick email to paintedsteel@gmail.com and reserve some of my time during the show.
Alternatively, just drop by with your stuff and get a fresh lettering, a cool illustration or just some stripes.
We will be located next to W&W Cycles which is one of the important booths to visit anyway.
Cu in Bad Salzuflen.

Quick Flash Thumbnail

2011-10-31T13:57:00.000+01:00

Three Thumbmail sketches made during a phone conference. not really related to the people we were talkign with, as i had the topics in my head for quite some time. And i exercised snakes like crazy lately.
Height abotu 4cm each, done with a uniball 0,5mm pen I got from the Kiev office supply ;)
Thanks Yulia. the Pen is excellent.
I think they might make great flashes if developed further and drawn properly...LOL

Because I have been quiet, I will upload a few scans from the sketchbook I usually draw into when having a business trip (covering the times during checkin, security checks, on the subway, in the plane...). So stay tuned.

Halloween approaching

2011-10-25T11:50:00.000+02:00

Despite my hatred towards imported rituals, I was not able to convince my wife to skip the pumpkin torture.
This version turned out really nicely, although I have the feeling it will decompose quicker and look more ugly very soon. In order to slow down the process, we put it in front of the entrance which is the coldest place around the house. So it will stay cool and frozen for the next few days....Next year i will give it a paintjob. Promised.

Custom Bike 2011

2011-10-09T20:50:00.001+02:00

As a few years ago, Udo Sacher from US Custombikes, invited me to display some work and do some live pinstriping jobs at his booth. I am looking forward, because this is always great fun and I can meet a lot of people. More important, this year Udo managed to secure one of the best spots on the show, directly next to the legendary W&W. The boys who started all the after market stuff for Harleys in Europe....
Click the picture for more information.

Lining job for Rado's Speed Shop

2011-09-30T12:40:00.000+02:00

Rado asked me to do a simple line and lettering job on this classic bobber.
Unlike with Udo's Bikes all the parts were still on the bike....LOL
What a difficult thing to do for me - but turned out nice.
The picture is from Rado's Facbook acount and taken with a mobile. so mind the rather low quality.

Crazy driving in Kiev

2011-09-21T08:32:00.003+02:00

I promise to take pictures of the traffic in Kiev's rush hour next time I am here.
According to a friend, the driving is human compared to China, but still, i think this is Wild West.
Motorcycles are for the brave, and I mean brave. Here it really makes sense to join a wild motorcycle gang in order to get your rights on the street. Car and especially taxi drivers give a fucking shit about others and push their cars in every available gap. Using the horn on pedestrians crossing the street at a zebra crossing is more than normal. Stopping if someone shows a sign of going to cross the street is not in their code of conduct.
This would be the perfect place for every German police man, who likes to pull out cars and puts out fines... crossing a red light got a fine increase from 1 Euro to 20 Euros lately.
Everybody thinks this is unfair and out of proportion. Crazy country. Still interesting to experience.

DreamMachine "V-Rocker 69"

2011-09-16T07:02:00.001+02:00

The latest project from Udo Kohse, Bike Project, featured in DreamMachine. Almost everything handmade and therefore pretty pricey (80K Euros). my contribution: the cool VRocker logo and a '69' on the backfender. painted with a brush.
Best part: the editors of the magazine start to leave my name in the articles...

There are more cool things to come from the press (this time again with Udo Sacher from USCB) - but you need to wait a little...magazine needs to get out of circulation first.

Skull Painting sent off

2011-09-09T06:59:00.002+02:00

30 x 40cm, Acrylics

This is a picture for friend who made me a generous present. I had to 'sacrifice' something for him. As i love my children a lot, I decided to sacrifice some spare time and paint him a picture of a topic and in the color scheme he likes...I think he will enjoy it.
I was suspicious about the color choice, but I like how the overall piece turned out.

Flash Contest #2

2011-09-04T21:47:00.000+02:00

As part of a tattoo flash contest on a forum, i created this flash and provided it for for coloring.
The Style is not necessarily unique, but it was good for the purpose.
Next time, I need to take more time preparing the actual flash design.

Trivia

2011-09-04T14:56:00.001+02:00

I finally scanned this food wrapping in: I brought it from my first trip to Kiev.

It is the packaging of the filled puff pastry Ukraininan International Airline serves on the short flight from Frankfurt to Kiev and vice versa.

Check the English translation – gives me a lot of confidence. I ate it the first time. Since then I try to have a huge breakfast in the morning to avoid this stuff.

I will not bore you that often with this trivia…

Skulls'N Roses

2011-08-22T13:21:00.000+02:00

Again a super long break in the updates of this blog, but summertime is time away from the computer...no emails, no blog only hanging out with the family.
This is an assignment which i did during an extended stay at the swimming pool (with my family). The challenge was to combine a skull and some roses & a background in an appealling composition, sparked by my studies of tattoo roses (10 minutes each). I just did not like the idea to draw them in pure isolation.

It was super fun and there will definitely of these sheets.

Max loves Rat Fink

2011-07-24T22:57:00.000+02:00

My son is a big R.F. fan and I do everything to fuel his enthusiasm.
Check his coloring skills on the Rat Fink printouts I organized for him – he will pinstripe in no time.

EASYRIDERS Magazine - first time ever

2011-07-15T21:57:00.000+02:00

I was exposed to German Bike Magazines about 32 years ago when I visited my my uncle. The first one he gave me as a present featured 2 chicks who were picked up by a vampire.

They defeated him with a electric drill or something strange. Not sure if this was in the german EASYRIDERS..

‘LSD’, a crazy kit bike from Outback cycles, was featured in the EASYRIDERS magazine. The first time a bike I painted was shown there.

Fingers crossed the recent chopper project I did with USCB will be shown in EASYRIDERS as well.

Fresh from the press

2011-07-13T22:08:00.000+02:00

Another bike ‚pinstriped’ by me, myself and I....LOL

Little work, big effect.

Markus von Möllendorf und Vosen in der Dream Machine.

Sketchbook Glimpse #1

2011-07-12T22:10:00.004+02:00

Udo Sacher, my friend from USCB, gave me shit for not updating my blog.
Well I had nothing to show by my standards until recently (found this demon thing and scanned in some articles) as I am working on a small scale project.
I have a custom made sketchbook which I fill with pens and Copic markers to learn more about negative space and foreground/background separation in Japanese tattooes.

The challenge was to directly commit to a composition and the line without sketching upfront. All drawings were done while traveling on the train or plane.
They were meant to be personal tests, but this blog also needs some updates….more to come soon.

In the press 2008 already

2011-07-12T22:05:00.000+02:00

My first pinstriping project I did for Udo Kohse, back in 2007.

Down in my basement in Frankfurt. Accompanied by some hungry big city rats (one of which I found decomposed in the middle of my stuff a year later – not fun)

Demon Mask

2011-07-12T22:01:00.001+02:00

A friend asked for a tattoodesign for his friend (complicated I know). He asked for a demon in a ‘demon mirror’.
Not sure what that meant, but I came up with this design and he likes it a lot and wants to get it tattooed…

The teeth need a little rework as they look too much like rabbit teeth…the Rabbit Demon.

This just sparked another crazy idea for a tattoodesign.

Pencil on cheap paper (for those interested).

In the press - USCB

2011-07-02T19:10:00.000+02:00

Another bike I was allowed to paint for my long time friend and trusted bike builder Udo Sacher, owner of US Custombikes in Grossheubach.

Authentic bikes build in his backyard shop. Awesome bike, which looks even better when experienced in real.

Again no credits in the tech part…seems the editor does not like me.

The color scheme inspired Ingo Kruse for a recent Thunderbike paintjob…LOL.

In the press

2011-07-02T19:06:00.000+02:00

I collected all the magazines which featured my work (mostly they removed credits as I am not advertising in these mags).

First one is the latest work in the press. My contribution is little, but the bike looks even better with my work ;)

Latest bike from Udo Kohse.

Vintage Pinstriping Animation

2011-06-05T23:40:00.000+02:00

No new pictures from my side, but an awesome Pinstriping video from the 70's on youtube.

Forever Two Wheels

2011-05-10T07:33:00.000+02:00

Test with catalyst on a chrome plated license plate. no way to get the paint off without drastic measures.
I should have spent more time on creating a sketch first, i guess.

Painting for a friend

2011-05-02T22:42:00.002+02:00

Details will be added the next few days.

More Skulls?

2011-04-30T21:45:00.000+02:00

No reference. Now (12 months later) I see all the flaws in the anatomy and perspective.

Well, it is a learning process, I guess.

If you never make mistakes, you can not learn from them.

Magenta Skulls

2011-04-27T22:38:00.000+02:00

Acrylics for the background and colored pencils for the skulls

Blue Skulls

2011-04-27T22:25:00.002+02:00

Acrylics for the background, blue + white colored pencils

Scans from an old sketchbook.More of that stuff to come soon...

SKULLSSSS

2011-04-14T22:40:00.000+02:00

No Comment.

Skull Painting

2011-04-13T21:51:00.003+02:00

Acrylics inside an old Sketchbook.
No references used.

FTW - Stickers for Udo

2011-04-10T15:42:00.001+02:00

For all the computer nerds who are following the blog: FTW does not (!) stand for ‘For the Win’.

At least not in this case. Rather in its original meaning being used by a wider audience.

The stickers turned out quite nicely – not sure if it also stands for ‘Forever Two Wheels’…

Your pick.

Skull Sketches for painting

2011-04-10T15:38:00.001+02:00

Sketches for a ‚commissoned’ painting for a friend in the Interweb.

The topic was a closeup on a skull – something which is very personal, yet tells a lot of stories - if I am able to get all the details into the 12” x 16” Acryl painting…..

The flower wig.

2011-03-07T19:02:00.001+01:00

Seeing the drawing now, it makes me smile. It was meant as an exercise for the arabesque elements flowing around an object.
Now it looks like a skull with a wig…. Need to post a different picture soon.

Raven for Matthew - 1st draft

2011-03-07T19:00:00.001+01:00

This is a design i was asked to do. It is only the first step towards the final design and style. It is mainly meant to nail down the setup of the scene and the size of the elements.

The final style is supposed to be close to the popular british Victorian/Thomas Hooper style.

Mini Dragon Sketches - get the flow right

2011-03-07T18:57:00.000+01:00

The day after the surgery i drew a bunch of really smalls dragons, but complete with swirling, claws, fire, etc.
Without references from tattoo magazines. The task was to get the flow nailed down before I move into details.

The sketches are not beautiful, nor are they fully functional, more inspirational to be scaled up and drawn or painted over properly.

The Magician - the moments before my first surgery

2011-03-07T16:45:00.001+01:00

Big Magicians trick you by putting your attention to something not relevant while they make the elephant go away.

After they drugged me for my first real surgery, I had this picture in my head with the doctor waving around a glove with clown faces to distract me from the knife going to cut me open…..
Well, it was not that hard, because 10 seconds after I was in the room they drugged me so heavily I instantly feel asleep….
The rest was purely signwriting exercises. Interestingly enough some of the 7 deadly sins. Seems like I was worrying too much…

Koi Drawings_progression

2011-02-11T23:30:00.000+01:00

Just wanted show some Koi drawings. The two on the left are copies from a Magazine (more the left one, and the second left is a copy of the copy….).

Skulls&Floral - some Biomechanics...

2011-02-10T23:47:00.001+01:00

Just a test for floral ornaments.

Skulls and ornaments without reference. Disregard the shitty font and the out of place biomech stuff…..

Tattoo Design used

2011-02-06T22:26:00.001+01:00

Done in 2004 for a friend – tattooed by Mike in Aschaffenburg.

The result came out great. I was amazed how well he was able to translate the drawing into a tattoo.

Tribal Tattoo Design

2011-02-06T22:19:00.002+01:00

A design for the at that time popular Bikini Zone-just-above-the-pussy tribal tattoos (around 2007) which was supposed to be tattooed by Mike in Aschaffenburg.
Like the tramp stamp just on the front of the body, between thigh and the outer stomach muscles.
The lady got cold feet and the design was never used.

A desperate state of mind

2011-02-06T22:14:00.000+01:00

Must have been around 2005 when i was a little desperate and had strange things in my head.
Inspired by an animation which showed a tit fighting with a hand…awesome thing.
Surely mine was supposed to be animated as well – might happen one day.

Flames Color Exercises

2011-01-17T22:23:00.000+01:00

Self taught most times means you figure stuff out later than other people who went to school – and by the time you check these things already forgot about them….

Played around with flame graphics, colors & color theory.

Concept Sketches from 2002

2011-01-17T22:18:00.000+01:00

Browsing through the archives, I found some concept sketches I did for a portfolio.

Must be from 2000 or 2001….can not remember.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #17

2011-01-11T01:38:00.001+01:00

More than a third done.
This starts to be real fun - I figured out how to simulate metal flakes in Photoshop....
Design is not 100% by me. i saw a pic on the DICE blog.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #16

2011-01-11T01:02:00.000+01:00

This turns into a lot of fun.....also into some cheese. But that seems to be ok. no limits.Magenta and Cyan are allowed.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #12 - #15

2011-01-10T23:41:00.001+01:00

After almost 5 months i picked up the Gas Tank Designs again.There are so many cool painters out there who emulate the 70's style and I start to dig that as well.
Less pinstriping, moving over to more taping off and spraying transparent colors on metal flakes... almost forgot the fish scale.

Sketch for the "LSD" Bike

2011-01-10T20:27:00.001+01:00

Just found the colored sketch for a cool bike project for Outback cycles - called "LSD".
One side showing lyrics and pictures from the song "White Rabbit" the other one from "Lucy in the sky with diamonds".
I will post pictures of the finished bike later. Still one of the coolest projects i was able to work on.

Another Biomech Arm sleeve.

2010-12-20T14:10:00.001+01:00

Originally i planned to also post a picture from two skulls with ornaments around, but the frekking scanner did not work properly.
2nd try on a biomechanic design. Will do more after some research.

CustomBike 2010-Panel Jam

2010-12-16T09:32:00.001+01:00

This year I had the chance to take part in a panel jam at Haui’s booth together with Haui himself, Jesper Bram from Denmark and Maze.
It was super cool and the thinners did not give me big problems as I encountered recently.
I guess the whisky I had at Maze’s booth and all the other booze before was counteracting the paint thinners….
Something to test more often in the future.
It was absolutely fabulous to work next to full Pros. Especially Maze lays done fabulous lines and he knows how to cover a lot of ground efficiently….

Hope to do something similar at Bottrop 2011...Not sure if they will invite me as a non-Pro.

First Custom Paintjob ever

2010-11-28T00:03:00.000+01:00

My parents stored my old Playmobil toys and gave me the motorcycle above. It must be from around 1980 - 1984 when Playmobil released blank white characters and accessoires which could have been painted with the fitting Playmobil pens. Needless to mention the fumes of the pens were hazardous and i got always a flash when i painted my toys. I must have been between 7 and 11 years. Not sure about the exact date. But cool to know that i liked that stuff early on....

Biomechanics & Flames

2010-11-27T23:49:00.000+01:00

Flow seems to be a silver bullet - like knowing a little anatomy and muscle flow helps placing pictures on a body.
For all the 3d geeks - edgeloops is a similar concept for 3d character models
Counteracting the main lines gives nice depth.

BioMechanic Sketch

2010-11-09T22:12:00.001+01:00

Something I created after finding Markus Lenhards (LuxAltera) Webpage and his BioMech stuff.
There could come more from this direction. I find it rather hard to get a decent background together rather than the mechanical design itself.
I think these kind of pictures live by the negative spaces and silhouettes against te background.
This is what makes them read from a distance.

From the Archives

2010-11-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

Finally I managed to get some old sketches scanned in and uploaded.

Some of them are more than 3 years old. I wish I had produced more of them in the meantime….
Shame on me.

skulls inspired by Thomas Hopper

2010-11-02T13:44:00.000+01:00

A coworker showed me the tattoo works from Thomas Hopper and he deeply inspired me to do some similar skulls.
Playing with the background themes a little, which are inspired by asian tattoos.

more skull sketches

2010-10-01T07:01:00.000+02:00

I try to do at least one 10 minute sketch per day.

Nothing fancy ;)

daily sketching - the same topic again

2010-09-30T21:53:00.000+02:00

I get not tired by drawing skulls and flames. Chimed in a Koi as well.
All the sketches are research topics. I have more Kois to come, but this was the last one I did….

Random Skull Drawing

2010-09-29T21:58:00.000+02:00

I figured that I run 4 sketchbooks in parallel and in an attempt to finish one this drawing got finished…

Technique still sucks, but the end result is not too bad.

Koi Illustration

2010-08-24T00:03:00.000+02:00

In an attempt to draw something every day i turned to the topic of Japanese Tattoo Art and more specifically Kois.

ArtRage is such an amazing program for only $80. The remaining 40 Tank Designs are done in B&W and need to be transferred to colored illustrations.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #09 - #11

2010-07-25T06:19:00.000+02:00

The summer is horrible for me – i stay outside so long that I neglect my computer ;)

No regular updates on this little project. Therefore today some color variations on the same topic.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #08

2010-06-18T23:54:00.001+02:00

I need to work hard to get to the magic 50.
More scrollwork soon.

Mustang GasTank Color Designs

2010-06-08T23:31:00.000+02:00

Getting sloppy pn updating the Sportster Designs, i found some old Illustrations for Mustang Designs.
With the next update of the Webpage I will provide a set of templates to download.
Then you can do your own designs.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #07

2010-05-18T22:34:00.001+02:00

Just a color variation.
I figured, i could create all the 50 intended Designs in one big session and then move on to the next type of gas tank…

50 nifty Sportster Tanks #06

2010-05-18T22:27:00.001+02:00

The daily dose of fun.

The colors are really gross. I might need to switch back to black and subdued colors.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #05

2010-05-17T23:15:00.001+02:00

The goal is to get a better feeling for form and color combinations.

Exploring different styles with less chemicals….

I hope to keep them coming.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #03 & #04

2010-05-16T21:52:00.000+02:00

A simple 5 minute sketch and one which took longer. Mainly to tweak the girl and to get a matte finish look OK.

I will need to work on it a little more.

The workflow gets better and better and I assume the next paint schemes to take about 10 – 15 minutes each.

50 nifty Sportster Designs #02

2010-05-13T22:01:00.000+02:00

This is the end of my parental leave an i managed to get to the computer the first time to create the second design for a sportster gas tank.
The exercise is mainly to establish a workflow, the designs will become more complex and elaborate the closer I get to #50.

MiniSkulls with Brush

2010-04-25T07:35:00.001+02:00

Recently i did a few Mini Skulls in grey on black with a small brush.

For size reference, I put a 1 Euro Cent coin next to it.

There is no use to make them smaller as you do not want people to get too close to your motorbike:

No touchy-touchy – only looky-looky.

Skull Marker Drawings

2010-04-07T22:44:00.000+02:00

The Skulls were unrelated and more doodles than anything else.

I used them for testing Copic Markers (Warm Grey 3,5,7 and Black) in an old sketch book.

When being at GDC in San Francisco I discovered a book called ‘An Illustrated Life’ with sample picture of sketchbooks from 20+ different artists.

The idea is to draw in a journal on a regular basis and keep track of things that happened in your life.

Not sure what happened in the day I drew these skulls….perhaps our daughter vomited on my new Polo Shirt….

Definitely more to come on this topic

Skull Studies #1

2010-04-07T22:29:00.000+02:00

I did some skull studies for a week or two. I will need to post more of that stuff.

Done in Art Rage as well.

Signwriting for Main Coast Choppers

2010-03-25T23:04:00.001+01:00

I recently did a cool sign writing job on a marble stone plate.

Looks classic and pleased the owner.

Stay tuned.

Assignment - 50 nifty Sportster Designs #01

2010-03-25T22:51:00.000+01:00

Today I started with the personal assignment to create 50 variations of HD Sportster Custom Paint Designs.

This is a test to streamline the production of templates, examples - call them like you want.
High end layouts perhaps. Stay tuned.

Tattoo Art - nice try

2009-01-09T23:50:00.000+01:00

For quite some time, I was dreaming about doing tattoo flashes or even start tattooing myself. Last year i had some time to kill on long distance flights and therefore took some time to create sketches that fall into the "Skull/Monster/Dark/Weird" category. Some were mere technique studies, but well, i need to start somewhere.
Instead of hiding them inside my sketchbook, i thought it would be worthwhile posting them. I will probably use them (at least bits and pieces) for upcoming airbrush works. Stay tuned.

Skull drawings - I am second

2009-01-04T08:49:00.000+01:00

I had this brilliant idea to create a set of 50 skulls as a design effort, or better as some training for visual development.
The goal was to create a huge number of different looking skulls, that i could eventually turn into illustrations to sell them in some way (Shirt prints, stock pictures...).
Well, i did the first 50 in a day - which was a great experience.
Btw, i did them in 2006 already - just figured that out when I scanned them in to display them here.

When i looked up the internet for reference pictures and a little more inspiration, i had to find out that some other person from the other side of this planet had a similar idea and pushed the envelope even further.
His point was to create 365 different skulls over the course of a year.
He succeeded and created a big buzz around the website with fans sending in their own creations or pictures from things they "skullified" with the help of his stencils.
Check his site for many inspirational skull pictures: A Skull A Day - Blog

My take on Skulls a year earlier:

Pete Parrot - old stuff again

2008-05-08T08:36:00.001+02:00

At fmx in Stuttgart they showed really outstanding animation work.
That made me post some more model sheets i did in the past.
They were mainly done to understand to concept of "poses". They are by far not as good as the ones i have seen by some students, but I am working on it. ;)
The original character idea is from about 1998 already, the modelsheet itself from around 2005.

The Flour Sack Charactersheet

2008-04-24T22:18:00.000+02:00

I guess this character was drawn by thousands of animation students already.
But still it has a some charm and I liked to put it in some poses and draw the keyframes for a walk and a sneaking walk for it.
There slipped also some abominations of the original flour sack into the drawings.
Hopefully, the 5 people who will check this Blog in the next few months will like them...

Boxman

2008-04-23T21:19:00.001+02:00

A fellow coworker, Nivaldo Del Maschio, who worked for Disney once told me to not do doodles on scrap paper and throw them away. I should collect them and prepare them for presentation.
Now is the time to show the mediocre stuff to the public.

le coq

2008-04-23T21:13:00.000+02:00

These Character sheets were hidden a long time on my computer.
Today I promised our Creative Director to post some more of my work on my Blog.
There is more to come in the next few days.
The coq in the first picture looks a lot like the coq in Surf's Up. But mine is quite a few years older :D.

VES Awards

2008-02-14T12:13:00.001+01:00

Crysis was nominated for the 6th VES Awards in Los Angeles.
Magnus, Tiago, MK and I made a trip there to collect the prize.
Unfortunately, US is not a PC playing country and they choose Halo3 to win the prize.
Damn.
At least we all looked sweet in the tuxedo.

Chicken Carl - coloured version

2008-01-09T23:11:00.000+01:00

This is my first real picture with ArtRage2.
It is the coloured version of an old character sheet I did.
I mainly wanted to test the layer system and the chalk painting functionality.
Stay tuned, there are more pictures waiting to be posted.

Sketch & Illustration Blog

2007-07-09T18:52:00.000+02:00

This is the second start as a blogger, after giving up on my "Life of a game developer" Blog.

I would rather write and post stuff i do in my spare time. This is more fun and more interesting.
Have Fun,
Michael