Its a girl

I don't even dare to say what that is for but she reminds me of Panny (Kaley Cuoco) of Big Bang Theory which just happens to be an awesome show!

Face to Face | In dialogue we trust

Last Week my GF and I attended this year's "Face to Face | Indialogue we trust" conference. It was held in the proud city of Ludwigsburg by Stuttgart. The specialty of this conference was that it features both designers and clients so that visitors experience both sides of a deal. One could see, how a decent designer-client partnership is established and nurtured in many presentations.
The presentations were held in German and French, France being the partner of this year's presentation. So on top of featuring clients and designers, the conference also featured german-french team-ups which gave an interesting glimpse at design and enterpreneur cultur in both countries. I am happy to say that I did not need the services of the translator to follow along, my French classes in school paid off after all. :)

Many presentations showed that when client and designer understand their collaboration as a partnership rather a master-servant deal, the process and the final results are mostly fruitful and successful. The claim "in dialogue we trust" was enforced by the organisators by having 15min coffee brakes roughly every hour, so there was plenty of time to make new friends and discuss the topics of the presentations. The location in the "Reithaus Ludwigsburg" was nice and very fitting for the event.

For my taste, the presentations went a little too smooth at times, with no real dialogue or dispute about certain topics. That was probably due to the 20min format and overall amicality of the event and that nobody wants to make enemies at such a business meeting.

Only one presentation by Justus Oehler (Pentagram) on their public relation work for the Deutsche Kinemathek, Museum für Film und Fernsehen was a little diversion of this overall piecefulness. Oehler, rethorically strong and with a somewhat arbitrary but charming personality, opened with strong arguments regarding certain design choices of other museums and agencies and presented pentagrams designs for the Kinemathek as the real deal. His presentation was applauded but then he was challenged by a design professor, who I could not identify and Martin Grothmaak of ProjektTriangle.
They gave polite but certain criticism and I really enjoyed the short exchange and flaring conflict as it was a good example of making and countering arguments and it was entertaining to see some people who think they are the shit slugging it out. :)

Other than that, it was smooth sailing.
I recommend every designer out there to visit the next face to face event or even join the club.
It is an informative, relaxed and very professional event and most imporantly, the catering never disappoints.
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Side notes:

-Visit the Mercedes Benz Museum as an absolute obligation for every design-, architecture or car fanatic. I was blown away by it. And I don't even like cars all that much.

- Ludwigsburg has some nice food joints. Hotel Rivera on Karlstraße has an excellent cuisine.

-According to google analytics my blog receives 90% traffic from Germany. But the idea of some guy sitting in Australia or Russia reading my shit feels so intruiging that I'll keep writing in English.

Zombietöter: Endstation Zombie

The dream team Strangmeyer/Krehl delivered another adventure of the famous Zombietöter just right for Halloween. I did this little tribute pic. Enjoy the comic.
English Zombietöter
Deutscher Zombietöter

Chief Boss Man

"Du kannst geh'n, aber deine Kopfhaut bleibt hier."

Mind Game (2004)

Director Masaaki Yuasa
Studio Studio4°C



Yesterday, we saw MindGame, which was such a mindblowing experience that I had to share this. I will not get into the story and I don't recommend going to wikki since there is a serious amount of spoilers in the summary.

Being a huge fan of the studio which had done astonishing work on the Animatrix series and one of my all time favorites Tekkon Kinkreet (2006) and Spriggan (1998), amongst many, I was craving to get my hands on this piece ever since I saw the trailer. The Trailer gives a pretty good impression on the visual and artistic ballistics which are fired upon your brain in an unbelievable manner for 100 minutes, nothing I have seen since The Flying Circuis Series comes even close to this. For the visuals alone, this film is worth a cheggedicheck.

To be honest, I did expect the story to be somewhat complicated and hard to follow, which is not uncommon for Japanese animation and also the reason I have to see these movies more than once to grasp them. So I got myself in the David Lynch mode and put it on. The film throws many nonlinear sequences at you, brakes lines of thought here and there but it is a genuine plasant and easy to follow ride. Storytelling is deliberately confusing at first to give the viewer this sense of being lost, but the narration pulls it together nicely which enhances the joy of the conclusion even more. The film surfaced in 2004 and I am somewhat sad that it took five years to be released in Germany but I guess for me, the film comes just in the right time. Just when I was coming out of a rather annoying illness and trying to get my ass back in gear to tackle all the issues that build up when I was physically and mentally incapacitated, this film reminded me of what it is that I love about animation and why I want to invest so much of my life into this art form.

Go rent and buy the DVD now.

"Flix: Akte Y" now online

Flix: Akte Y (Flix: Y-Files, English Subtitles) from Gellnerism on Vimeo.

Here you can find some more info.

"Flix: Akte Y" on the interwebs.
Deutsche Version ohne Untertitel auf Vimeo
Deutsche Version ohne Untertitel auf Youtube
English Subtitles on Vimeo
English Subtitles on Youtube

Richard Byers Exibition

I met Australian artist Richard Byers at the Pictoplasma Conference this year. He is a really talented and friendly guy and he is having an exibition in the RIPA.FRIES.GALLERY in Berlin-Mitte this week. Don't miss the Opening on Thursday, 17.09.2009 19:00. Gormannstraße 16.

He does look like Gon

On learning 3D and hopefully keeping sane

This is my first real 3D animation. I know, it's not more than a test but it shows that I am having some progress. And I have to get this out of my system because I have realised that this is not only my problem but something many have faced. Learning 3D, the hard part for me is that you don't really see your process materialise as in 2D. When you start out doing 2D animation, you make a drawing, then another one and so on and gradually you build up your animation. No matter how advanced and polished your process gets later on, this is basically your work for every animation you'll ever make - one drawing at a time.

In 3D, this process is way more abstract and you just spend your time digging into the fabric of the programm, figuring out what you have to know, where all the buttons are and what you need them for. The process in 3D is much more detached from the actual work that will come out of it. There are hardly any "milestones" (i.e. pretty pictures) that you can show your mom, your friends and yourself to make sure you are on the right road.
As opposed to the progressive step-by-step feeling of 2D, learning 3D is kind of incredible-hulk-leaping from one mountain top the next (optionally smashing battle helicopters mid-air) and hoping that you land somewhere near where you wanted to go.

Learning 3D for the heck of it can prove to be very insightful and inspiring, as long as you get used to this feeling of not really always seeing where you are going.

The world is at least 3D

Shit.
3D animation is a whole other ball game, my friends. If you are really good at something else and have a family and friends, I recommend to keep away. However, I've been learning some software and slowly getting the hang of it. It is fun, all mathematical and nice and clean but as it is always the case with new things, you feel like a retarded baby infant with no arms. By the time I am a 3D ninja, I probably won't be able to hold a pen and be really smelly.