Happy Cupcakes!

One of my motives made it into the Könitz Porzellan catalogue. You can get the big mug HERE and probably in stores selling Könitz. I think the big description is a bit weird but if it sells... oh well. >_<

A chair for (mostly) girls only!

First some nerd-news: I actually set up my old nano cube some weeks ago because my ramshorn snail (you can see that one blurred in the background) had some problems and because I had her since she was a tiny blob I decided to give her a single appartment without fishies and added two Brotia Pagodula. These horned beauties are a tad more critical to feed and keep but after one week we were suprised with 8 little babies... and a week later the other snail gave birth to 10 more. I was stunned since these are no hermaphrodites and I managed to get two pregnant girls. O____O

The babies are really tiny and I'm always scared to kill one when I clean the cube or the aquarium (6 moved over already because the cube is simply too small for 21 snails). I wonder how many will survive and grow up. At the moment they measure between 2-3 millimeters but. They only eat alga and fluid chlorella (that's the tricky part with these) and I'm still fiddling around with finding the right balance. Duh! Did I mention I love my water snails? Weird hobby I know but these critters are fun to watch when they eat and hover around.

 And something interesting for the girls: The saddle swopper. My old chair is still okay but I sat hours and hours on it, unmoving (except my arm), hunching over the table and with crossed legs. Really healthy *cough* The problem was: It's pretty unhealthy for the back and neck and legs and mostly everything. Since my hubby has a normal Swopper I knew this one would solve 99% of my problems. And so I bought one after mulling over it for quite a while. Honestly, that chair costs over 550 bucks so it's something you HAVE to decide slowly and probably check if you really need one.

 The design of the saddle swopper is ... like a saddle. That's why my hubby eg can't really sit on that thing. It's probably like sitting on a huge lady saddle for bikes for hours. He hurt and said it's probably not wise for a man to sit on that thing if you still want babies in your future. As a female it's nice to sit on that thing. One thing you have to keep in mind:

 Never crossing your legs again. At least not on that thing. Sorry for the awkward perspective... anyways, on the swopper you have to sit with open legs (so no short skirts in the office on that thing either).
Your pelvis gets moved forward and you end up sitting straight and use your back muscles.
In the beginning this might hurt like hell after some minutes (I actually got sea sick) but add some minutes sitting on it per day and get used to it. The good thing is that it has this awesome 3D spring. While typing I'm actually moving left, right, back, forth and don't sit still.

If you want to check out the details about the chair, click HERE. It's definitely a good investment and if you have a cheap chair you can switch to if you back gets too tired the better.
Otherwise ask me anything if you have any questions.

Random cutie pic: Tretel still trying to sit in his bed after it fell down from the side table. I'd say "success" since he still managed to look not that stupid.

So Fluffy!

 

I can't get over Hantje's paws... these are so effin fluffy I want to poke them all the time! It looks like instant slippers. She hates getting cold feed and won't go outside in winter (seriously!).

short vacation- heading north

 Guess where I spend the week-end? Crowds, lotsa fried food, pretty bad (and sometimes good) music and a lot of wind and salty air? Oh yes, we were in Hamburg. I needed a break pretty bad. We headed north on Friday and since the Hamburg habour is honoured yearly with a big party we spend some hours mingling with too many people and enjoying the quirks of slightly chaotic traffic.

 Left is Sonja, one of the best friends you can wish for (aka willing to let us mooch time and a couch to sleep on), right me. Excuse the look... free time= instant slob mode- the all black thing was an accident as well. Behind us: Hamburg habour near the Landungsbrücken before the hauler ballet started.

 Oh yes! Before heading to Hamburg we went to Warnemünde (if you ever visit Germany in summer... GO THERE! At least for a day.... really!). It was so nice to dip my feet into the baltic sea. Some brave girls were already swimming.

Pretty amazing view: zero people, muchas sunny skyline. Oh I love the sea in May. My greedy Gollum self loved the humanfree view we had.

I came back with lots of ideas, a fresh amount of motivation and tons of fruits and asparagus. We usually don't leave Hamburg withouth visiting the weekly fish market (every Sunday, 5:00-9:30 am) and I shopped myself to death on... fruits and asparagus. I love asparagus... it's a never ending love-story.

What a month + random cutie Han

 Fluffy Han still sports a lot of fluff. I wonder if the fuzzle attack ever stops. Unfortunately she loves to hog the bed, couch, me, Timon, clothes... everything cozy. Well duh- I guess the perks of having cats.

These arrived some weeks (months?) ago and getting these from the customs was pretty epic since it was a hugggeeee package and only these small figurines inside which nobody understood. I think Renee did an awesome job. The small pumpkin hat is removeable. I love it so much.

Otherwise I was sick as a dog and try to make up the lost weeks. It's a lot of work and I spend some hours at the lawyer clarifying some stuff I actually didn't want to deal with. I think a lot of people underestimate the need for a good lawyer.
When you start to freelance make sure you have a good contact you can reach fast and who does a good job. It's annoying but important and if a shit storm starts you better make sure to use everything you have to fight back.

But whopee... next to that I'm pretty fine and will post more work-related pics soon. Today I just want to enjoy the great weather. I hope you have some rays of sunshine as well. I craved these a lot. Thanks god the good weather is back.

Huuugggee WTF

A fellow deviantartist linked me the information and image this morning. The anti stress ball is sold in the 123Mart in New Zealand. Seriously?! It looks like a chinese production and is a rip-off. IF you happen to see it: do NOT buy it- it's illegal and I already contact the laywer. Cross your finger for me the thing gets solved.
I am kinda tired of this stuff happening. It's not so complicated to send me a mail with a license request. Gah!
I am thanksful for everybody who keeps me informed and sends me those information... even if they happen to not make my day more shiny and happy. Networking will someday- me being optimistic- show those fuckers that artists actually care pretty much about being respected for what they do. In these moments I feel just like a doormat. Duh.

Spreading Love...

.... or winter fuzzles. It's this time of the year again when I put on clean clothes and after 2 minutes with the cats they look like this:

It doesn't look that bad but having a third cat (amount of hair) spread all over my clothes is sometimes really annoying- my back is the worst part and I wonder how the hairs got *there*. The third unwanted cat is everywhere. Hantje tends to nap in my freshly washed pile of shirts and I end up frantically removing the third cat every morning. I love my kittens but the third cat in spring is the worst part. Probably.
Since Tretel still loves to sit on the balcony freezing his booty off he has a decent amount of third cat he loves to share. Same goes for Hantje.

Kitteh luv

Sometimes the siblings actually do bear each other...

Hantje looks really puffy but it's her winter fuzzles. She has so long hair for an European Short Hair I always wonder why... Tretel's fur is much more compact and shorter.

Kiki figurines

These are actually not fan-made but commissioned. Some girls get new shoes... i get figurines @_@
 And because blogger sucks at the moment and won't let me link the videos...
you have to click the links.

Pumpkin Kiki

Froghat Kiki

I'll update the videos links as soon as blogger accepts the links. Grrr...
Static eye-candy:

You want a figurine of your character as well?
IF you are interested to get a high quality figurine of your original character you might want to consider commissioning Vii as well. She's a great sculptor and showed me inbetween steps and corrected things in a light speed. The price per figurine is *more* than reasonable and I highly recommend her.
Visit VII on her Deviantart page She listed a price chart but it's best to directly note her to get the final price since it can differ a lot depending on details.Did I mention I love what she does? I mean look at the pumpkin one.... I send t-poses and got back that tiny perfect squishy thing. Oh, I'm so in love with it Q_Q

Otherwise I'm still and constantly swamped in work (which is nice...nothing's worse than being unattractive in the market). I had a prototype game play yesterday and my head is still spinning from information overload. I cross my fingers this monster of a project will come out fine. At the moment I'm just scared that thing might blow up right into my face but it's a challenge and I love challenges.

We started our weekly outside swimming session again and since the sun finally pops out inbetween muddy clouds it's nice to get a bit of vitamin D. I missed the sun a lot and I am yearning to be more active outside when you're not freezing your bum off no matter how many layers you wear. I love winter but it stayed long enough this time, don't you think?

Happy Stalking

 Hantje does the ceiling cat with much more grace than Tretel... I think. Did I mention they'll turn 3 in April already? O_o Time flies by.

And I really wanted to post this little creeper weeks ago but I never found time to do so. Stalker Kitteh!!!! Isn't he great?! Saskia give him to me and he's still sitting in the same position on my table. Stalking my every move. Oh I love him O_O and it's the only stalker I love.

This blog will get some major pimping in the next months and I hope you bear the absence of more posts. I am happily drowning in (partially private) work again and I hope the new look will be much loved. It certainly will make some things easier. For everybody.

Flieg Mit, Kleine Eule! - what's inside

 The little owl figurines. Six are included. Oh, I love them....!!!!

 The box cover for the German-Switzerland-Austria stores.

 The plan is close to the original American one. We tried and discussed a different layout but this one was and is actually the best solution and in my opinion you could only make it worse. Some might say "buh, cheating" but doing something completely different just to make it different doesn't always serve the game.

 The manual got a hoot hoooottt look as well and I like the final printed version a lot. It's not plain and boring and I hope people will spend 30 milliseconds longer to read he background story. ;)

 And the size of the owl figurines. They look really small in my hand but keep in mind I'm 5'11 and the figurines need to fit into smaller kid's grabby hands and they do well. The feather ears keep the figurine from slipping out of the hand and that's one of the reasons they got those things. Natural stopper >_<

 And since it's still cold here in Berlin... the cats constantly hog the heater. One of the few moments they -oh what a wonder- stick together.

Best cushion in the world is a fuzzy booty cushion... Tretel likes!

And for anybody who might be interested: Timon and me will be in Essen this year. Again. Hopefully not sick as a dog after one day.

Ceiling-Tretel

Perfect round chubby face look he does so often... and I never managed to get a picture of. Till yesterday. Cleaning the aquarium is always verrrryyyyy interesting for the cats. Han's always winking and mewing and checking out the fishies and Tretel loves to sit on the ladder (feeling quite superior) we use to refill.
If the ladder is blocked (with the water bucket... yes, we do it old school) he moves to the top of the cat post and makes those funny looking faces. Gahh, chubby face is so effin cute!

Flieg mit, kleine Eule!

"Flieg mit, kleine Eule!" is the European version of "Hoot Owl Hoot!" by Susan McKinley Ross. She's the author of Qwirkle and when I got the project I was super excited because the game is for little ones and super cute.
The American version has owl chips whereas Schmidt Spiele got little chubby owls produced and those are so darn cute. We matched the figurines as best as possible to the illustrated ones and I love them. You want to poke their small round booty all the time! *cough*

More information can be found HERE and the game should be available up from February for around 20 Euro. The price depends where you buy it so it could be a lot less as well.

New Games :D

Super Race -Schmidt Spiele

A smaller game in a shiny metal box (ohhh, I love those metal boxes... my editor doesn't). It's the one I did in my vacation and though we had only 7 days for everything I'm pleased with the whole thing.
The cover was actually the thing that took most of the time but hey, sometimes it's like that.

more information (German language) can be found here

Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht Kids- Schmidt Spiele

It's one of my favourites.... I only did the animals but doing chubby animals is like asking me if I want BJ ice-cream (*runs screaming yesssss* ). Of course I want! It's Ludo for smaller children who are too small for the dice-count-version since it's played with a color code only. The good thing is that you can decide if you want to play bunny, cat, mouse or dog rather than "I want to be...yellow".

more information (German language) can be found here

... and one more open for February but they haven't announced that one... yet. Eep!

fuzzles on my netbook

 Yes, he loves the netbook as well... or...

subtitle: "I'm more important. So do you duty: cuddle me. Subito!" 

How can I say no? Ever?

Happy New Year!

Before it's too late and I know I will spend tomorrow with swimming *yowzaa* and eating (honestly the swimming is just an excuse for the overboarding dinner) I hope everybody has a wonderful New Year's eve and can spend the time with sombody (or a whole bunch of people) you're close to.

Here the terror of fireworks and happy kids making a lot of kaboom has already begun (two days ago....) and sometimes it sounds like we live in war-zone. Actually we do since I live on the border to Neukölln and gosh, the district gets crazy with fireworks and basically everything making a lot of noise.

Happy New Year and make some good New Year's resolutions you can keep and motivate you. I already have three big ones and I'm willing to do (mostly) everything to stick to them and achieve my goals.

Looking back this year was crazy... and I wouldn't have changed one minute.

Let's rock 2013! :D

I got myself for Christmas....

 ... obviously not Hantje. As always she's in her floaty boat watching lazily as I work... on comic pages. Actually the one you see is a reworked version of "anger a kitteh"... a page hopefully finished tomorrow. I so want to work on a snow page right now.

I got myself a Spyder4 Pro.
This tiny little stinker is essential for calibrating my screens. I have no idea if you ever had the chance to calibrate *your* screens but having a good screen also means you might want to invest in a buddy who helps you to see the actually correct colors. Nobody wants to be shocked in the final print version. Though I have to admit: If the printer messes up you'll end up shocked anyway. But it's a good start and for me essential.
IF you think "Oh shiny... me wants" check the Datacolor hardware. There are different versions of the Spyder. I had a OneEye before which was fine as well.

Tretel normally hogs the heater place. I am amazed he still fits in.

Kniffel- Das Kartenspiel

It's one of the board games I did this year and it's one of the more abstract ones. And gosh, since I already have my printed version (whoot!) I can say the print turned out gorgeous and the colors simply awesome (ever tried to convert a pretty RGB violet shade to CMYK?... pure nightmare!). We had such a rough start and I struggled a lot with the concept but once I skipped the idea to adapt the old style and make it very 2012 the project was fun.

For those who know the old Kniffel game(s) and loved it you might fancy to check out this one as well.
Basic information and the backside can be found at boardgamegeek. Kniffel will come out in February after the Nürnberg fair (and three other ones I'll blog about as soon as I'm allowed to).

I'll show some pics after Christmas- at the moment I'm trying to squeeze so many different things into one day it's kinda scary. Duh. I'm happy when we can finally flop down on the couch after Christmas.

Big things that make life a lot easier....

I am currently inbetween game projects (though I still need to do 40 illustration sketches till January for one) and work (a lot) more on Chubs. The final goal is so damn close I could literally touch it... if I didn't have to paint everything. But... oh well... some pages take longer... some don't.
At them moment I have one of those "1 week for one page" thingies and it keeps unnerving me.

Anyways... when we started a lot of things were unclear. I had a rough plan of the cats' house but the more pages Lew and I did the more complicated it got.
Where's that cupboard? Where's the desk? If I have bird perspective will it look good. Should I zoom in? I had to do a lot of corrections because while drawing I realized the perspective sucked. Or didn't look right.

We decided to use Sketch Up. Lew was so patient and constructed the house up from scratch (isn't she great?!). We based it on the logic of the first comic pages and ended up with a pretty weird house probably nobody would built like that but it's cozy and I'd totally move in (if the kitchen was bigger...). Having a rough construction helps A LOT. If you ever decide to do something longer with a lot of interaction in one place you might be interested in using the (free) Sketch Up as well.

I still have to draw everything (digitally) and add a lot of details but the base is always correct and we can move the angle till the view looks perfect. It won't safe that much time in the beginning but the more I work with those screenshots the more I love it. Sketch Up doesn't love us back and is buggy as hell but that's bearable.

Owlish

 *click for full view... it's huge*

It's just a detail of an illustration I did for Saskia as a gift. She had an odd doodle version in her sketch book and I wanted to do something full color when I had some more time.

I worked with those pastel like brushes on my last board game project as well and it was fun to try out something different. Though you won't be able to see the many details in the final format (worked on poster size for promotional material right up from the beginning) it was nice and fun and I think it underlines the age group it's made for and the actual concept. I hope people will like it and I hope nobody will complain about flying eggs (which are supposed to be owls actually).

The brushes were from Deviantart- I tried to remember which set it was but since my library grew over the last couple of years (at least for faking natural media) I honestly gave up. So before anybody ask: No effin idea and I can't provide a link. Sorry.

I want to try doing a live wallpaper in that style and hope it works. It would be cool to have something more... natural looking for the android.