Interview with Cyclone

 by 3D Addict
(May'97)




    Cyclone is becoming increasingly better lately.By winning the S&M'97 gfx compo, he proved that he is entering the ranks of the best scene graphicians.Check his personal gallery, and judge for yourself.Anyway, this interview should give you are better picture of this talented German graphician.




    3D Addict

    Cyclone



    Please introduce yourself

     My real name is Holger and I'm 22 years old. I'm a student of electrical engineering at the University of Dortmund, a city situated in the west of Germany, well known for it's numerous breweries. :)

    :) What was your first computer, how and when did you become involved in the scene and when did you start drawing?

     I got my first computer in 1986, a c128, and I still have it today and switch it on from time to time to watch some new demos. I coded a couple of intros from 90-92, but I didn't do any real gfx at that time, only the nescessary things like logos, fonts etc. In late 91 I bought an Amiga500. My first 'scene'-production was a 1993 dentro. At that time, I was in a local(lamer) group called Leprechaun (but I guess that's the way everybody starts, isn't it?). After I could afford an A1200 in 94, I joined the swiss PC group Psychosquad in early 95. But unfortunately the time in that group was very unproductive (I don't even own a PC today), so I joined illusion in september 95, a really nice group with good friendship and party-celebrating people. But as everything went down the drain with the German division, I teamed up with Abyss in summer 96, and I'm quite happy there. :)

    OK.Which hardware/software do you use now, and where do you get the inspiration from?

     I'm using Brilliance on my A1200, it's still the best pixelprogram there is (for my needs at least). My inspiration comes from various sources. I've got a really huge amount of visions and ideas for pictures and productions, really crazy and stupid most of the time, admittedly. But I think brainstorming is a good way to give the coders certain hints and help.

    I agree :)How many hours a day do you spend in front of your amiga, and how many of those hours are used on making gfx?

     At the moment I switch it on daily, arg! And I feel I spend far too much time on irc'ing, compared to my time on painting. Sometimes I could kick myself for that, really. But spend all of my spare time on scening?? No way, I prefer going out with friends etc. Hardly any of my friends know what the demoscene is all about.

    The same here.Anyway, I know from my own experience that it can take days and often weeks to draw a good picture.How long does it take to draw a good picture for you, and what are the most important aspects of making a great image?

     10-30 hours. I do many things in just a few hours which would have taken me over 10 hours only 2.5 years ago. It took me quite a long time to develop my own style, and I think that I've finally found it. The most important aspect is - in my view - that the picture radiates a certain feeling towards its spectator. It's hard to define as everything's just a matter of taste. In my opinion a certain 'scenish' touch is also important, which is the reason why I only use lores. Hires is too easy to cheat imo(except for a few pictures/artists). Lores painting is thus a bit harder, cause every pixel you set, is later on 'seen' by the spectator, whilst in hires mode, the pixels are too small. It's a certain challenge to paint in lores. Also colour mixing is much harder than in hires.

    Yeah, but what do you find the most difficult to draw, and which phase of your drawing do you enjoy most.Personally I like mostly making the finishing touches when the image is about 95% complete.

     Personally I like to do the outlines and rough shading, which gives you the very first impression of the picture, and you can still experiment a lot. The 'hard work' phase is what I really hate to do, as it's robs a lot of your time. The final phase gives you a very satisfying feeling, that's why I like this part most.

    :)Is drawing in 8 bit color mode a limitation or a challenge for you?

     Not really, I can well live with 128 colours, I don't need more. Maybe I'll try truecolour out some day, but that's not for sure. I love to use a large amount of small ranges with falsecolours, and mix these ranges up. Many artists have like 4 ranges in their picture. Imagine a portrait of a guy. Then they use the first range for the skin, the second for the hair, the third for the background and the forth maybe for the lips or eyes or whatever. So, what I want to point out here is that they don't really MIX their ranges, which is rather boring imo.

    hmm, ok, what do you think about raytracing?

     Suggs in 90% of the pics. It's also hard to believe that certain objects were really made by the artist, and not found on some CD. The most ridiculous way of using a renderer is to create a logo. Type it in, choose your texture, set some lights and camera, and click on render. How lame..

    You are right about the 90%, but what about redrawing?

     Difficult topic. To be honest, I think copying is nescessary in most cases. Not for a whole picture, but for parts of a picture. Some people keep insisting on 'original' work, but look at their pictures: It's comic work or wild collages, and who can proove that certain parts of that collage aren't redrawn from another piece of art? Really, I think considering no-copies as better pictures, is a stupid attitude.

    Being an active scener for some time now, you must have seen a lot of pics made by other graphicians.Who is your favourite graphician?

     Made, RA, Niko, Visualize, Phase, Fadeone (in no special order)

    What are your favourite groups, musicians, coders, diskmags?Favourite demo?

     won't answer this..

    Any future party plans?

     My next party is hopefully going to be Wired97. TP97 for sure.

    We'll meet at TP97 then :)Tell me, what does the scene mean to you, and which aspects do you like/dislike about it?

     Talking about the Amiga scene: really creative people for a large part. Everybody's crying cause the scene is rather small compared to the one 3 years ago. But! There are still good demos, aren't there? I prefer the Amiga scene to the PC one, to be honest. PC is too mainstream, at every party DOZENS of entries for the demo compo, and 80% looking all the same.. really sad. The Amiga scene means friendship with many cool people to me, it's simply great to meet with foreigners who have the same great hobby as you.

    I agree. Have you ever considered a carrere as a professional graphician?

     I've had a few offers to paint for games, but most of the time from lamers that know nothing about painting/coding/how to make a game. They just want to make a game, but don't know how..

    OK. What are your other interests/hobbies, besides your scene activities?

     Going out with friends, drinking beer and so on.. Unfortunately my studies take a lot of time, so it's not possible to have any other 'real' hobby besides scening.

    One last question: how did you come up with your handle/alias?

     haha, I decided to use the handle Cyclone in early 1991. To be honest, I searched an english dictionary for a 'cool' word with less than 9 letters (some c64 reasons). Many times I thought of changing my handle (as there are at least 2 other Cyclones in the scene), but I decided to keep it..

    ;)Would you like to say Hello to anyone?

     Ich gruesse alle Saeue mit langen Fussnaegeln..

    Thanks you for your time, and best of all in your future plans as a graphician. :)

     thank you, was a pleasure for me.



    check out Cyclone gallery





   news    galleries    articles    database    links