What is it with this attraction on dystopy? Can’t say for sure, but i believe for me it has something to do with my childhood – growing up in the 80s and 90s where you got swamped with movies about the end of mankind. mad max, terminator, mark 13, all these impressions did leave a mark with me.

Nowadays the end of the world moves a little bit further away, we don’t have the overpowering nuclear thread like it was at the 80s. Nonetheless the interest in the downfall of society is still there. Its interesting for us in a weird way.

Little sidenote: I would not survive the apocalypse too long, i guess. Not good with guns, can’t run fast and the skills that i have are probably not that relevant – not sure about the need for illustrations and design in the modern wastelands.

Here some illustrations i did covering the topic, got plenty of these, stay tuned for some more.

cybertoyz: chaos theory – outside booklet

cybertoyz: chaos theory – outside tray

retractor: no resistance – cover

retractor: no resistance – inside booklet

from time to time i stray from my usual style and my mixture of 3d and photoshop and start something completely different. one of those things are my cartoony artworks – when i was younger i doodled a lot and this is somehow the digital equivalent of those. i usually don’t start with a sketch, but instead see that i create something unique within the digital medium. those usually take a lot of time, but hey – they are fun.

xatrik: inside information – outside booklet

xatrik: inside information – inside booklet

psionic riot – outside booklet

psionic riot – inside booklet

those who read my journal carefully will remember that i mentioned that i did some shirt designs for public beta. well, good news, the stuff finally got printed and can be purchased via their webshop. there are tshirts and hooded vests of both my androids and cybergoddess design, and they look really neat. i am happy. the quality of the shirts is top notch, so if you want to get your freak on, check them out

direct link: androids t-shirt
direct link: androids hooded vest

direct link: cybergoddess t-shirt
direct link: cybergoddess hooded vest

i was thinking about making shirts for a while, so its a happy coincidence that zoran and gabi from public beta approached me with their inquiry. doing artwork for shirts is a tad different from my usual approach, so it was interesting to see if i can adjust to the requirements. all the design was done in adobe illustrator.

One of the frequent topics i always come back to is cyberspace – for me there is still this idea of the abstract world of information, in which we are immersed and have unlimited freedom – so bascially its pretty much everything that the internet isn’t.

my inspirations for this kind of artwork are the wonderful and deep cyberpunk novels by neal stephenson and william gibson, the crazy artwork of the computer game rez, and everything else that i find fitting.

there a a couple of albums i did with this sort of theme, for now i want to to present you two albums for digital psionics, psionic substance and psionic moove.

from 2002 to 2005 i did the flyers for future beatz, a drum and bass party in vienna’s flex. those were really fun. the parties were also crazy. good times.

4 Horsemen – 23.02.2002

Pascal – 13.04.2002

Black Sun Empire (Front) – 28.09.2002

Black Sun Empire (Back) – 28.09.2002

Klute (Front) – 30.11.2002

Klute (Back) – 30.11.2002

Kemal – 22.03.2003

Barcelona Release Party (Back) – 02.08.2003

DJ Sonic – 29.11.2003

Black Sun Empire (Front) – 17.01.2004

Black Sun Empire (Back) – 17.01.2004

Fresh (Front) – 27.03.2004

Fresh (Back) – 27.03.2004

DSCI Night – 22.05.2004

Big Sound Clash – 26.03.2005

31 Records Night – 28.05.2005

Tactile – 29.10.2005

One of my most favorite album artwork i created so far has to the first album i designed for soda ash. the  premise was excellent, meaning there were little guidelines except for a bladerunnereque retro scifi feel that the album should have.

Soda Ash – Tech Noir Cover

Soda Ash – Tech Noir Inlay (1)

Soda Ash – Tech Noir Inlay (2)

Soda Ash – Tech Noir Inlay (3)

Soda Ash – Tech Noir Outside Tray

Zeitgeist Zero are a UK based gothrock industrial band and i had the pleasure to designed both their albums so far. Their selftitled debut got released in 2005 and their follow-up  ‘dead to the world’ came out 2008. Despite their dark image they are really nice guys and were fun to work with. Check them out either at their webpage (which i also designed) or their myspace page.

Zeitgeist Zero Debut Cover

Zeitgeist Zero Debut Booklet Inlay

Zeitgeist Zero ‘Dead to the World’ Cover

Zeitgeist Zero ‘Dead to the World’ Inlay

2002 – 2003 i created the flyers for ‘liquid planet’, a periodical drum and bass / electronica party at the arge kultur in salzburg. A joined efford between a good friend of mine and myself, we had a blast in creating a retrogame world.

the best part (for myself at least) was that if you joined the flyer together you noticed that they added up to one big panorama. probably only a couple of people noticed that, but what the hell, it was fun. sadly enough, the flyers got discontinued after half of the year, but nonetheless, here for your enjoyment for the first time the complete panorama:

between 2003 and 2004 i had some contact with the german hardcore scene; back then i assumed this music pretty much dead, but techno was still going strong around the ruhrgebiet. one guy contacted me, one thing lead to another and i was working for a couple of the party organisers and some guy who did compilations for more music. without washing too much dirty laundry in public the whole thing was pretty much messed up – two organisers paid only part of the money, and from the compilations i also received only partial payments – more music did pay the company that made the compilations, but the money got somewhere lost before it come to me. no one to sue either, because the company went bankrupt soon after that. oh my. the joy of being a freelancer: extra hours, tight deadlines and after that you get screwed for the money.

anyway, back to the topic i wanted to talk about, hardcore and darkcore in germany and the covers i did. there were a couple of ongoing compilations: godfathers of hardcore, 100% darkness and a oneshot called ghosttown. apart from that were a couple of other compilations like army of hardcore where i did the first two volumes.

after 2004 i discontinued my work on the compilations, so if you see any later volumes, they are totally not from me. believe you me.

nonetheless, i have to admit i had fun with the creation of the covers. here some for your enjoyment:

100% darkness vol. 1

100% darkness vol. 2

godfathers of hardcore vol.1

godfathers of hardcore vol.2

godfathers of hardcore vol.3

ghosttown

One of my favorite clients are and were digital psionics. they are a small australian psytrance label, and i have been doing artwork for them since 2002. they don’t pay much, but leave me for the most releases creative freedom in what i am doing, therefore resulting in some of the most untouched ideas from me.

When they decided to do a compilation titled ‘psionic tales’ i decided to take a spin on alice in wonderland and tried to move it to a more electronic, digital feel, but with still keeping the spirit intact.

while psionic tales was already quite some efford, i decided to take it further with the second release ‘psionic tales vol. 2′, where i really spend quite some efford on the artwork, adding characters like the red queen, the card guards, the rabbit (in the moon), the caterpillar and the mad hatter.

psionic tales – cover

psionic tales – inlay

psionic tales – tray outside

psionic tales II – cover

psionic tales II – booklet inside (a)

psionic tales II – booklet inside (b)

psionic tales II – tray inside

psionic tales II – tray outside

ah, and by the way: ‘psionic tales III’ is scheduled for this spring ^_^