Winter Pong

I'm a sucker for interactive stuff. And I'd really like to animate around and do this and that and make a Kiki LWP but no time right now =.= Still it's on my agenda and I reallly want to have a cat live wallpaer that makes you ogle the screen for hours and get that high on rainbows cross-eyed face people normally get when they look at cute baby cat photos... or maybe it's just me getting that expression.

Art Academy Contest

... totally forgot to blog the information.

You can find all information on my homepage (onmipresent sign on the front page, you can't miss it).
www.trenchmaker.com

The contest is world-wide, no restrictions except age. As long as you have a shipping address that isn't "moon" it should work. And of course if your postal service isn't as crappy as my DHL one.

IF you have questions, you can ask those here. Otherwise happy drawing & painting!
Please keep in mind that I don't like cheaters so if something looks weird as in traced or copied, you'll have to prepare for the entry NOT being accepted. Sorry, but play fair.

You don't have to create a masterpiece. If you check my favs I have some really charming pieces in that are quite not a daVinci. If it's personal and charming and has something special, it's a good chance you'll get a DS.

Questions? Shoot!

The signed DS, first price, will be personalised for the winner. I won't draw on it before the contest ends. If the person happens to love Kiki or wants a toad/shoe/fingerprint/addfunnwishhere and I doodled Kulla on it might be odd.

the problem with cats and Christmas

Clearly Christmas is totally cool for cats. At least when it comes to decoration and paper wrapping. Tretel decided to chew on our chain of lights last year (when it was ON) and Hantje loves paper wrappings. Most interesting part might be half packed gifts... you have no idea how fast they can undo the whole work.

A shame we love our cats anyway.... ;) I guess we'll buy paper and stuff twice this year.

Artist= Vampire... We need no sunshine

I feel like being glued to my screens. I miss the sunlight, sports (actually got very very fond of my nearly daily training), I wanted to read books and reduce my coffee consumation which happens to be pretty much too high at the moment.
The working space looks pretty dark on the pictures but it's light enough to get no sore eyes. I have mostly closed curtains since the natural light bugs me too much and looking outside and seeing sunshine is totally depressing if you can't actually GO OUTSIDE. Arf. Vampire mode is not my most beloved mode at the moment.

Otherwise I finished the last corrections on the third board-game on Friday and it's coming out in Febraury already. If you like animals and to draw, laugh and make nasty fun of ugly doodles this will be 100%ly something you'll like.

So looking forward to get out again and see daylight.

The bed shrank... really!

 Now.... 2 Cats squeezing in 1 bed... quite a challenge. And Tretel doesn't like to share. Hantje either. It's quite rare they cuddle together. Sadly a bigger bed doesn't really fit on my table.

Than... so much bed and so tiny (slim) teen kittehs.Tretel looks like a troll planning world domination but I couldn't find any better pics. He made gruesome whacko face on the others.

11.11. impressions

 From the lovely Mirjam. Can't show the other thing since I got the prototype :3

 Whoot!

 My Marimos: Herbert, Kurt, Gundel, Hank and Frank.

 I hope I won't fuck it up.... always wanted a cube, never dared to buy one. Hantje & Tretel are looking forward to get Marimo and Pawn TV.

Tretel looking very important.

Thanks for all the wishes I got. Actually the most impressing one came from the absolutely great team of Burton. You guys rock so much! 

I'm currently working in a maddening speed together with Irene and Lew on graphics for them (and a pretty cool app I'll show off when it's available). It's one of those things you think you can't finish on time. But we did last year and we'll do it again. I hope so... at least.

Camoukitteh

Where's the kitteh? One of the older pics when Hantje was still only Babyhan and a camou-kitteh.... cat+ freshly washed clothes= instant blissfull sleep I guess.

Since today's the only day having 25 hours, it's Sunday and I'm working anyways I feel like I'm not really getting out of that weird zombie mode which started one month ago. I guess one reason is that it's getting dark so early. The other might be that I'm tired of animals and those are haunting my dreams...
     17- Goat
                  21- Crocodile
     uh...
23- Mouse
                             26- Bunny... arg brown or muddy or white?
                arg...
30- Cow
and so on. I haven't drawn so many pigs in... practically never and though I have to admit my ability to draw cheeky pigs went from -5 to 120% it's kinda unfunny to see how many hours you can spend with inks and flats and thinking about giving a camel a mohawk or not (it has one btw...).
So much for jobs. I should work on my comic pages. I really should. I should also learn to say "no" to awesomely interesting jobs but it's like telling an alcoholic beer's a totally bad idea to order.

My birthday's in 2 weeks btw and I want to have a Marimo. If anybody wants to make me happy you know how ;)
Doh... I should work on 16- MohawkCamel now... and 15- Frog .... ElephantBadGoldfishDogPolarbearsomething... arg...


Ever had a job haunting you so much you just wanted to finish ASAP?

Lidl Puzzle

Now how cool is that?! One of the puzzle motives I did where released today.... in Lidl France. It's only the fairy which is a bit sad since the pink princess was my favourite of those two but alas... I can't have everything.
If you like faires and puzzles grab it as long as it's available. And no, I have no information if the puzzle(s) will be released in another country as well. Sadly.

The motives were requested like that so if anybody feels like vomitting rainbows- I'm sorry ;)

Tretel and Hantje again

Tretel is 100%ly too big for this napping place but alas, the other place was already taken by Hantje and she's in bitch mode every time he tries to sneak in hissing like a maniac. Poor Tretel... ;)

Since they are practically out all day sitting on the balcony watching birdie& bug TV they get winter fur and... I daresay gain another pound of winter coat by eating more.

Tretel is much more open for evening cuddling than he was half a year ago and Hantje is still very very possessive and naps on my back/stomach every time I'm on the couch. Wierdo cat stays weird.

Space Mission promo poster & Calendars

A1 huge and the quality came out perfect.... Those will be given out at the game fair in Essen in October. Whoot!

And because I just got my calendars from Deviantart...

Space Mission Final Trailer

Yay!!!!! So looking forward to get my copy of the game and the posters.

Grass... again

... and I never get tired of it.
I'm still cleaning up my brush presets- throwing out a lot of things I got from other people or found on the net. Probably 95% of those brushes aren't really useful.
Normally I use the one I already >blogged about< and it's still the most useful although it looks so plain. With nature it gets a bit more tricky. Of course it looks awesome to paint every single blade of grass but mostly you'll end up needing ages to do that.
Since I colorate my comic panels 100%ly and the backgrounds NEED a lot of work I redo my preset-list and try to create grass, flowers (those above are self-made as well) and mostly leaves for bushes or trees.

Since some people seem to be eager but have no clue how to do it... (and you SHOULD do it):
This video explains it pretty well

Keep watching it till the video end. The last part is the most important part of the whole process. Defining the brush presets will take a while and you have to test a lot but it's worth the work! :)

And because it's pretty interesting and I just got it: If you happen to have the awesome artbook of "Open Season" check the background paintings again. There's one page showing some custom brushes they actually used and it's interesting to see how those simple brushes work together and how amazing the final result looks.

Chubbanimals Calendar 3

The third calendar is finally done and available and can be purchased >HERE<
It's A4 landscape (A3 on the wall, upper part illustration, lower part the actual calendar.

How the print quality looks like can be seen here: http://trenchmaker.blogspot.com/2009/01/snow-queen.html
It's semi-gloss and very smooth and I like how the colors come out on the Deviantart calendars. Definitely worth the shipping costs since most stores tend to have a problem with violet-blue shades.

Win, win, win for only 1 Like on Facebook!

Whoa... getting competitive!

Schmidt Spiele, myself and hopefully all of you will rock the boat with a tiny like on Facebook.
Normally you have one spot for a game. We made two... :)

Basically the graphics have the same base- animated by my awesome 3D superheros Mehran and Amin- and a concept we finetuned over the last couple of months.
For Version B Bobby Soulo, a wonderful colleague of mine and very talented musician you should keep an eye on, made the music and lend us his voice.

Long talk, short info: The music and voice-over differs a lot and that's where you can decide what you like best. If you don't speak a word of German: no matter, listen, experience and like. It's your choice!

What you can get for participating?
A lot!
<b>The Prices:</b>
- The very first game package we get (game languages are German, French, English, Italian and Dutch i think... English 100%ly!)
- a signed A1 promo poster (i just finished 2 days ago...)
- aaaannnnd.... the original design of one alien (of course I chose one of the cuter ones...) made on paper.
The only chance to get an original piece for free :D

I'll upload the piece when I get a chance to get it scanned properly. But trust me: I'd really like to keep it >____<

An example of the look of the designs can be found here: http://cliquenabend.de/spiele/062100-Space-Mission/bilder.html
Of course the one somebody will get is not displayed but you might get a hint.
 
Where to vote?
http://de-de.facebook.com/SchmidtSpiele

Questions? Shoot! And be so kind to spread the news. We made a bet how many votes we get and I really wanna get the cookies! :yum:

Anne

Christmas -whoot

Short gif animation of the last illustration for my calendar.
Not as fancy as I wanted it to be but I like it anyway and it looks nice in a quite bigger version. Funny (and really annoying) is that the colors are massively changed in the screenshot mode and the final image looks radioactive in the gif version. It's actually something inbetween both color saturations you see.

If anybody knows a solution for the screenshot problem let me know. >_<

1 Poster... in layers

Actually some layers seem to be missing in the screenshot... O_o *scratches head*
Anyways, that's a good way to show that Photoshop isn't always click and done and not everything can be fixed with one layer. Especially when it comes to 50% non-painted art, I found it very useful to carefully layer effects over each other instead of trying to stuff everything in one.
Since I've got the bad habit of NOT naming everything I can strongly advise to NOT follow my example. ;) It's pure madness but in the workflow I totally forget resulting in massive swearing afterwards.

If somebody wonders: I work with both the English (home studio) and German (studio) version. Results in pretty funny files.

New Homepage is UP, UP, UP!

www.trenchmaker.com

ist finally relaunched. It feel a bit weird to have the video online but I hope some people will find it usefull. We're fixing minor bugs and correct some things but basically it's done.

Regarding the video: I know the japanese one is out of space awesome but at some points me and my colleagues discussed if it's even possible. I think it is possible (to achieve those results with AA) but again, for me the DS is mostly a thing for total beginners, sketching on the road and color concepts (again it comes in handy to have something that's small and uncomplicated).

Therefore the tutorials will show only the basics and images you can do in half an hour. Not more. I spend around 1 1/2 on a paprika, which is fine and I like the result but it's not the main point using it as a pro- in my opinion.

There will be a little contest in some months- so if anyboy is keen on getting a DS and Art Academy for free keep an eye on the blog. :)

Regarding my gallery and the more than honest words on the homepage: It sucks a lot if people steal your art. Really. No matter how much I'd like to be cool and stay above... it doesn't work. I get angry every time somebody sells my artwork for 200 bucks upwards and I can't accept answers like "I found it on Google images, what's the problem?!"
The problem is that it's illegal and the bigger problem is that it's my stuff.

So until we find a solution I have to keep the homepage gallery like it is. I am totally sorry (I already had all images ready :/ ). IF anybody knows how to technically prevent those rips let me know. Maike and me are trying to find a solution and every help is totally appreciated.

If you have any questions- let me know. I'll try to repost the text in German language later.

Please keep in mind that you need to have an account to post something here- it's the only solution to prevent massive spam posts from companies offering stuff you don't want to buy.

Christmas.... still unfinished

If the animation doesn't start click on the image ;)

... this will take ages to finish. I have to admit I'm having trouble with the colors but maybe it's good to know that my color schemes aren't always perfect. I suggest that whenever you have the feeling the one you chose doesn't work: Try to change it instead of finishing without trying out other combination and ending up with a result you're not 100%ly pleased with.
I changed the whole composition as well since the original one in my Moleskine didn't look very good on the new format.

I'll post a gif with the complete process when I'm done. Maybe it helps somebody... ;) It's the best attempt of something close to a tutorial I can do.

Hell yes! New board-game coming soon...

More information in English can be found >>HERE<<

Available in October this year. :D

Meadow-ing... takes ages

Still far far away from where I wanna go with it. I'm frustrated with game manual graphics. Perspective-photoshopping is one of the things I find really annoying and it doesn't do any good if you have a game with like 1 gazillion parts and all have to look "at least 90% correct".

Anyways, I hope I can finish my Hippo next week- somehow. Though I doubt it... but till now it looks like I'm gonna like it. I just have no idea why I decided for a medaow with a lot of flowers.