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September 2025	Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences - Hochschule Darmstadt Excited to join Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences - Hochschule Darmstadt as Professor of Animation! I'll be working with the talented students and faculty in the Animation and Game programs (BA & MA), and am really looking forward to helping shape the next generation of creative talent.
August 2019	Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften I am excited to be joining Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences as professor in the Media Design programme!
April 2019	FMX 2019 Come and listen to the super creative and awesome guests I have assembled in the presentation track "Games - Art & Play" at this years FMX. We will hear about the painterly style of Aardmans' Game "11-11: Memories Retold", the innovative integration of art creation and game design in Media Molecules' upcoming game "Dreams" and about the hand painted style of the soon-to-be released "Knights and Bikes" by Foam Swords. I am very excited, see you there! And many thanks to FMX for giving me the opportunity to be on this years Program Board!
February 2018	Hochschule der Medien I am joining Hochschule der Medien in Stuttgart as professor in their Audiovisual Media program!
December 2017	"Animation: From Concept to Production" out in English The English translation for Hannes Ralls' fabulous book "Animation: From Concept to Production" is out, including my chapter on 3D computer animation :-) The cover looks even more exciting than for the German version! Have a look inside it over on amazon.
July 2017	animago jury What fun and honor to be a jury member for the animago award 2017 and see all the amazing work that was submitted this year!
December 2016	Robbi, Tobbi und das Fliewatüüt in cinemas I did a little bit of animation work on this one.
July 2016	Smaragdgrün in cinemas The last installment of the gem stone trilogy by Kerstin Gier hits cinemas - featuring more appearances by my favorite water gargoyle Xemerius! It was great to be back at ARRI to lead the animation for this fun 3D character. -->
June 2016	Dance Experiments at ANIMAFEST Zagreb What an honor, my site specific animation "Dance Experiments"  is being screened at the media façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb MSU
May 2016	Magnum "Release the Beast" The spot "Release the Beast" for Magnum is now in cinemas and online. I animated on this with the team at BaconX. Guess which 3 of the animals are CG. If you don’t want to guess, but see a breakdown of the work, have a look here:
October 2015	Animation book My dear friend Hannes Rall has published his book   "Animationsfilm: Konzept und Produktion" (German only at this time), with a chapter by myself on 3D Computer Animation. Here is a link to the flyer  - or have a look inside at www.animationsfilm-buch.de
September 2014	Back to teaching I have been appointed as Professor for 3D Computeranimation at Mainz University of Applied Sciences in the department of Time Based Media.    Let’s get things animated there!
September 2014	The 7^th Dwarf I worked on this baby a while back at Trixter and it’s finally being released now! This German animated feature film is the follow up to the 2 live action ‘Zwerge’ comedies.
August 2014	Saphirblau in cinemas The German feature film Saphirblau has been released to rave reviews from its fans. I had the chance to work on the 3D character Xemerius as lead animator in collaboration with the lovely team at ARRI in Munich. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the directors Felix Fuchssteiner and Katharina Schöde will get the chance to complete the trilogy with Smaragdgrün.
January 2014	Iron Man 3 gets Academy Award Nomination for Visual Effects! Uh, there haven’t been any updates here from me in a while, even though I have been busy with quite a few projects over the last couple of years. Well, Iron Man 3 definitely deserves a shout out! I am super proud of the work of everyone at Trixter and really happy that I had the opportunity to be animating on the show with them! Here is a pic of one of my shots.
November 2011	Happy Feet 2 is released! 1 ½ years of work from me are in this baby. Now go see it in cinemas! Happy Feet 2 website and trailer
June 2010	CG Overdrive Talk time at CG Overdrive in Singapore on June 20, my topic is ‘Character Animation – From the 12 Principles to Advanced Concepts
May 2010	Festivals and Awards for ‘There’s Bliss in the Kiss’ I’m so excited, my animated short film 'There’s Bliss in the Kiss’ has been screened at many festivals around the world in the last few months and received a couple of awards already, among them a Anima Mundi Web & Cell Contest 2010 - 18 Years Special Prize by the Public Jury, a Gold Remi Award from the WorldFest Houston, a FilmOneFest 2010 - Jury Award, a Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival 2010 - Seoul Metro Choice Award, a Best Film Award at Forster Film Festival 2010, a Certificate of Appreciation from the AniMazing Spotlight! and First Place at the Reno Film Festival in the One-Minute Movie category – bring out the champagne! *and many thanks to everyone who helped me realize it!
February 2010	Photography on the cover of Itch e.05 My ‘Floating Series’ has been selected for the cover of the online magazine Itch e.05.
October 2009	View Conference I’ll be at View Conference in Italy giving a talk on character animation.
October 2009	SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 – Mascot Animation My mascot animation ‘Do The Robot’ will be screened at the SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Computer Animation Festival in Japan. You can see it here in a tiny version as the opening of the CAF trailer. Or watch it full size on youtube.
September 2009	Workshop at ReAnimania – Cancelled Unfortunately the workshop on 3D Character Animation at ReAnimania in Yerevan, Armenia had to be cancelled due to organisational problems. Wishing them a great festival.
June 2009	Annecy Animation Festival I will be in Annecy! Finally again after a few years of abstinence…
May 2009	It’s time for fmx again – fmx/09 In addition to presenting my school and my student’s work, I was part of the panel I got a Job Abroad [elation]... Now What [panic]? which was put together and moderated so well by Jan Sjovall. Here are some of the slides and additional information Jan assembled, useful if you aspire to world travelling in animation. And I had the honour to present a screening of the fantastic SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theatre program.
December 2008	Read my article about SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 on AWN / VFXWorld The inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 in Singapore was great. Read interviews, reports and my take on it on AWN / VFXWorld
November 2008	Real Eyes on Stop Motion Puppet As there has been a revived interested in the technique of combining stop motion puppets with live action eyes, I have decided to post a video of my process. The video shows the pipeline of creating a 3D character extension for stop motion puppets. I developed this work flow in 2002-03 for the graduating project "Puca" at the Institute of Animation, Visual Effects and Digital Postproduction at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. At SIGGRAPH 2004, I presented the character extension process with film excerpts in the Sketches program, uploaded here.
October 2008	SIGGRAPH ASIA 2008 Computer Animation Festival It will be a great show, I am working hard on it as Computer Animation Festival Producer. Check out the CAF trailer here.
May 2008	fmx I will be at fmx in Stuttgart, Germany. Drop me an email if you’ll be there as well.
December 2007	Mel @ Byteme! I was invited as guest speaker at Byteme! Digital Content Festival in Perth, giving a talk about my experiences working on Happy Feet and the BioShock TVC. I met many great and inspiring artists down under, check out the amazing work by VJs and live cinema performers Solu and Jean Poole.
October 2007	Bioshock made it onto the Stash 37 DVD There is even a making of included!
September 2007	The Bioshock TV commercial went on air n It was great fun animating with the guys and gals in New York. n n
July 2007	Moved to Singapore n I took on a job as Asst. Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media at NTU. I am teaching 3D Character Animation there. n