The Fur Diaries III

Of course I tried to find an apprenticeship here in germany for screen/print design over the years. I got a short internship and learned some stuff about basic print and layout there. I got interviews with companies of all kinds. From the typical advertising company to industrial 3d to a games company. Until today there was no company that needed my expertise. Last year I had 3 job interviews. All turned down. That’s why I’m freelancing these days.

Every now and then I get commissioned by people or companies that ‘need’ my expertise. Beside that I work with a friend on an internet store for trendy clothing. Check it out here wear-ever.de (german of course). No it’s not the stuff meee would wear. I’m pretty boring when it comes to that… but that’s a bit offtopic here. =)

Work…

Jobs I did so far were no too big deals. So far there were several concept art things, cd covers, a poster for a presentation and a few architectural visualisation things. Sometimes there are magazines asking for an article about a special theme. I can tell that you can learn a lot about people and how this world works when you do freelance stuff. Often it’s not easy, and I could tell some stories, but so far I got every request done to the satisfaction of the clients. That’s a fact I’m pretty proud of.

Exposure is everything…

Another thing I’m doing these days is to show my work whenever and wherever I can. I want people to see my work. As many people as possible! The more people see my work… the higher the possibility that I get a job for someone to do. Exposure is everything. That became my motto art wise. When you mean it serious, and your work really has a professional level, then show your stuff wherever you can. Get it out there.

It never stops…

Technique wise I moved from playing with filters in photoshop to doodling around with 3d software for beginners to first artistic projects creating places I would love to see one day to serious, professional artwork creation and even animation. There was a long process of learning and trying out how I could bring my ideas into a picture. Lots of sideprojects came up too. Like photography. There was even a period where I focused more on space art. Everything I did helps me today to understand what I’m doing and what I have to do when I start a new project. I think it is very important to have your own experiences when it comes to artistic things. Of course schools help you with the basics… but creativity and how to use your creativity is a complicated thing which can’t be taught on schools. So at the end of the day, when I look at what I created… I’m pretty stunned. I’m somewhat happy with the stuff I do in general. Yet I’m far away from a quality level I will be really satisfied with. Then again, as an artist, you never seem to be happy. You always see stuff and you want to do it better and better and better… it’s a never ending story.

Tig(a)er…

“Dude, you wrote it wrong!”
“No I didn’t.”
“Man it’s tiger, with an e… not ae!”
“I know…”

A lot of people are asking me where I got the name from. It’s quite a story actually. Back in the days, yr 2000 if I remember right, there was a lady. A lot of people call their cats ‘tiger’… old hat… so did this girl. In the german language we have our world famous ‘umlaute’ like ä ö ü. The ä sounds amlost like an e. So the name of her cat was not ‘tiger’… no she called the cat ‘tigär’. It’s a very cute thing in the german language to use the umlaute instead of the actual letters. It sounds cuter when you speak it. So I liked that ‘tigär’ thing and used that for a while as a nickname.

We all know that umlaute don’t work on the net. So there are other ways to write them out… like: ä =ae – ö =oe – ü=ue. When I wanted to build me a website to show my, back then pretty poor, art on I needed a domain name. So since we cannot use umlaute… I had to take the ae for the ä. And whoops – tigaer-design was born. I like the ae instead of the ä… not only because of the fact that it would work on an international basis… it also looked cooler. It’s a unique name a think and I like it. And that’s how it all started. =)

The End

If you read through all 3 parts then you should understand now that certain things need some time. The decision alone “I want to be a painter!” is just one tiny step you are doing on a very long road.

Hope you guys had some reading this little journey. Now you pretty much know everything about where I came from and where I am now.

This concludes the diaries. For me it was nice to recapitulate what I did over the time. A long road which I’m still walking down.

Thank you.

PS: All typos are mine and copyrighted! Get your own typos. ;p

Regards

signed

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