3DTotal: Hey Michael! Your portfolio is outstanding, one of the best I have ever seen!  It looks like you have a lot of experience behind you, so how long have you been in this game and what got you started?
Michael: Thanks a lot for the compliment! Basically, I’ve been familiar with pencils, crayons and stuff for longer than I can remember; while the other kids were singing and playing in kindergarten, I was sitting in a calm corner of the room, doodling. I got my first jobs while I was still at school, creating designs for flyers and T-shirts. After school, in 1998, I was hired by a 3D company where I could make my dream come true and bring my character designs to life with the help of 3D software. I was doing designs, storyboards, modeling, animation, texturing, and all that stuff, for music videos and commercials. Some of them have been awarded at several 3D festivals. I had my first contact with a Wacom pretty late in 2002, which really got me hooked because with all those hours watching the rendering window on the monitor, I was able to paint stuff that

3DTotal: I think your broad knowledge base of 2D and 3D is definitely reflected in your work. Have you tried packages such as ZBrush or Mudbox?
Michael: Of course! I like playing around with these tools and I consider them as a great addition for my concept art work, for example if I want to see a turntable or walk loop of the character I already designed, but drawing will always be the main element of my design process. It happens too easily that these complex tools with their hundreds of features dictate your design process instead of giving you freedom. Painter is a synonym for the translation of traditional paint media into the digital universe, and tools like ZBrush 3 or Mudbox are the counterparts in terms of intuitive digital clay sculpting, but still, describing something complex and catching the soul of something with only a few pencil strokes instead of completely fleshing it out in 3D seems to me the higher goal.

3DTotal: Characters are obviously a very popular choice for your art, but within this category you seem to branch out a lot: photo real, stylized, 2D, 3D, fun, fantasy ... So what are your favorite styles and what kind of commissions really get you excited?
Michael: All these kinds of styles are challenging when you try to keep away from automatism. Basically, it’s all about art and creativity and inventing new visual aesthetics, these aesthetics can be very different but each one will follow a certain logic and rhythm.