Take Care

I'm off for a longer break, see you then!

Just as a side note: I really like how the details stick out here by using a black bg.

Ars Electronica Centre; Paperwalker TV: Episode 4; Cruickshank's Philip & The Stove

Update: Check out what Matt Cruickshank is cooking over at his subsidiary blog "Philip & The Stove". There looms something great... (Image © Matt Cruickshank. World rights reserved.)

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From February 25th - 27th 2010 I will giving workshops and presentations designed for theoretical and practical aspects of character design (according to custom, together with the brilliant Maryam Laura Moazedi) at the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz. Besides that, the centre will host an exhibition of my works from February 25th - March 20th 2010.

Btw, this drawing is done 100% electronically in order to meet the standard of this very location ;-) Additionally, I recorded the rough sketching process of this piece. It's a rather short clip again, I hope you'll like it.

Paperwalker TV, Episode 4, "Fat Lines":

Work In Progress Clip 4 on Vimeo
Software used: Photoshop CS4 · Tablet: Wacom Intuos 4

Concerning the colour palette: I picked the colours for my motor critter from the title sujet or rather the videowall screensaver of last year's Ars Electronica Festival:

ARS Electronica Linz Screensaver from Freedom Of Creation on Vimeo.

Paperwalker TV: Episode 3, "The Critter Within"

I have to slow down updates here on my blog for a little while. Well, I will not stop posting. I'm just scaling back my output a little. Anyways, I recorded another work-in-progress piece lately. The clip is not very long but it shows the entire initial rough process - which I think is the most important part anyway. I titled the clip "The Inner Critter" or "The Critter Within". You can watch the clip over here (please click on the image or the link below):

Work In Progress Clip 3 on Vimeo
Software used: Photoshop CS4 · Tablet: Wacom Intuos 4

Clip stills:

Big And Heavy

Update: Stephen Worth posted this wonderful clip over at the Animation Archive Blog: People On Other Planets ("Mars & Beyond", Disney/1957).

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Big And Heavy

After not drawing a while, it feels like if something big and heavy weight down my drawing hand and the lines have it their own way.

Paperwalker TV: Episode 2

Recently, I recorded another work-in-progress process: Line follows shape to create form...

Work In Progress Clip 2 on Vimeo
Software used: Photoshop CS4 · Tablet: Wacom Intuos 4

Clip stills:

Paperwalker TV

I'm back again, Happy New Year! I switched on the screen recorder while I was sketching this rough concept piece, enjoy (please click here or on the image below to start the clip):

Work In Progress Clip on Vimeo
Software used: Photoshop CS4 · Tablet: Wacom Intuos 4

Clip stills:

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Update: This is good news. Recently, dear colleagues Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin launched Creaturebox 2.0 in order to give their creatures, hobs and other fine things more room to bounce around AND to make us marvel at the brilliance of their art.

Image courtesy of Creaturebox i.e. Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin. A.R.R.

Happy Holidays!

Enough is enough. I stop drawing for this year and relax a little. This is my last post this year. Thank you for being with me here. I wish you Happy Holidays and the best in the New Year. CHEERS!

Yet in a way this is a self portrait - in a critterish sense... :o)

Images ©2009 by Satzinger & Hardenberg and Soleil Prod. World rights reserved.

Snow Game

Man, it's snowing a bunch outside...

Anyways, last year we spent quite some time in Montevideo, Uruguay. I became very familiar with the streets and places. An absolutely wonderful city full of caring people. In this context it's quite weird to watch some mech-monsters burning down Montevideo in Fede Alvarez' science fiction short film "Panic Attack". (via Cartoon Brew)

A Duck Saved Christmas!

Yes, it's true! This causes a sensation: We found this old newspaper in our top secret archive-cave high up in the Austrian mountains, close to the borders to Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Australia.

The Daily Christmas© reports as follows:

But there is more to it than that. With our top secret rendering method D.R.A.W.N. - developed together with our technology partners from NASA, LucasArts and Kelloggs* - we were able to recreate a colour photograph of the event:

* I got an e-mail asking me if we really worked together with NASA, LucasArts and Kelloggs on this. Well, truth be told, we worked also with ESA (European Space Agency), Paramount and Nestle on this top secret method :o)

Frosty Woolthing

This critter deals with some non-licensed cough and cold preparations...

Duck Effect On The Envelope

Jake sent me over his Inktober book, including this killing duck drawing on the ouside of the envelope. Cheers, that made my day :o)

Update: Sorry, I couldn't resist:

Speed Thumbnail Sketch

Duck controlled fake dragon...

Btw, some inspiration came from here (© Builders Studio):

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Update: Hovig does not post often on his blog, but when it's always a blast, isn't it? (image © Hovig Alahaidoyan)

Snippet

This is just a tiny snippet of a much larger sujet which I will show you on the next time... the whole sujet/illustration is inspired by two European comics icons that were btw quite a source of influence on StarDucks.

Hell CO2

Voila, a birdish reindeer critter of sorts. Oh, by the way, Happy Thanksgiving, Turkey!

Teravolt Supervogel aka The Big Yellow Fellow

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Update: I just found this post about wash painting on the Animation Archive Blog. It's a "killer"!

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The most popular comic book series in Birdtown... and the most stupid name for a superhero. But the birds love it, I tell you... btw, do you know Floriane "Floony" Marchix's work? Smashing!

Critter-Family Portrait

This is the sujet (put together of pieces mostly dating from 2006 to 2008) for the upcoming exhibition in Linz (Austria), Ars Electronica Centre, February 2010. In this connection, many, many special thanks to the Academia Nemo for their support and for piecing together this large collection. Viva Firenze! :o)

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Btw, before I start working on this kind of "title card" work I often browse through the Movie Title Screenshots Database for inspiration, ideas and things. (screen shot © av-geek.com)

Something Rough

Something pretty, pretty rough...

Apropos rough and drawn (drawn being the operative word), Jerry Beck posted Gene Deitch's keynote-speech-video for the Xiamen Animation Festival here: Gene Deitch: Quo Vadis Animation?

This is btw a sort of manned crittered kite balloon. Some inspiration came from here [>>].

Photo/File: Wikimedia

Here's another piece of inspiration. A painting (this dates from 1913) by one of my favourite artists, the Austrian painter Jos Danilowatz ("Motor in der Karikatur", ROB Verlag Wien, 1925).

Photo: Satzinger & Hardenberg Archive

Jake's Inktober; Cat

Update: Now, you can pre-order Jake's Inktober Book... yummy!

Image © by Jake Parker

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Cat

Alrighty, here's my preceding "Cat" post: We teamed up with Olympic champion Fritz Strobl and Red Bull design mastermind Rob Rottensteiner to create the "Fritz the Fritz" character. I for one was hired on for art direction/bgs/titles and character design, Rob for story development and for his skills in coolness :) After some editing on the colour design and stuff we're quite happy with the outcome and the project's progress. I'll keep you updated...

BG colours: I felt quite inspired by an opening pan of the 1940 Warner Bros. short film Bedtime For Sniffles [»]. A short while ago, Hans Bacher posted two wonderfully recreated bg pieces of it over here [»].

Duck

In some ways, this "bird" looks a lot like my younger brother Val. Well, to be exact, sometimes he has the same facial expression...

Harpoon

Back to the pencil 'n paper stuff: This is a very, very rough concept sketch...

Travelling Exhibition: Of Critters, Ducks And Dragons

Update (SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11): John posted here the finished sculpt of the birdish dragon thing. I really like how John and Fausto added a little of their own flavour. I did btw this very character - I'm talking of the drawn one - for a children's book which supports a non-smoking campaign. That book should be published next month or so...

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Alright, and here's the originally post about the exhibition things:

I will post the dates, venue and things as soon as I get the details. Cheers to the great people of the Accademia Nemo for the generous support!

This nice piece was sculpted by the fab Paolo Chiari, btw.

Photos: Maryam Laura Moazedi

A Bird, Again

Warm up sketch...

Btw, I'm following Jake's Inktober... it's a blast! You should do the same ;)

JD and Fausto

LA based 3D artists JD Imhof and Fausto Tejeda have chosen one of my birdish critters to work on. I'm actually quite curious about the result.

Birds And Pencils

This is one of the many, many birdish critters who set off into the "Birds & Pencils" book. This is BTW the piece I tried to finish live at my Pixel 4.0 workshop - but my laptop wasn't that cooperative that day, so I finished it back home. Voila, another piece done entirely digitally (Photoshop CS4/Wacom):

Update: Jake liked the colour scheme of this piece. Here's the colour palette I used, strongly inspired by the KTM Racing colours:

Images ©2009 by Satzinger & Hardenberg and Soleil Prod. World rights reserved.

Alright, and here are some impressions of the Pixel 4.0 weekend. The Austrian Academy of Sciences is quite a place, isn't it... (Photos © Kris Staber/PIXEL. A.r.r.)

Pixel 4.0, Vienna

Finally, we arrived at the Pixel... the weather is really great and I'm looking forward to hosting the character design workshop. Cheers from Vienna.

Critters In Progress

This is how I usually go about it... roughs, colours and stuff.

Image: Wikimedia