WHEN Ginger was in the US for over six weeks last year, I had the feeling she needed something to cheer her up a bit. So I sat down one Sunday morning and made a tiny animation for her — because she definitely deserved a parade!

Here are a view photos taken by Christen Bach in 2010. The series is called “The Big Game Hunter”, since I am posing next to my favourite paintings by Johan Potma, Mateo Dineen & Fons Schiedon. And for those of you who know me merely from facebook: Yes, the moustache is real :)

Rmrs.me – This very page is my private & non-professional portfolio, hence the name.  Here you can find everything that is not work related: imperial insanity & moustache mania — in short: Rmrs.

KAISERBRAND GbR — This is the company I administrate with my two dear colleagues Jana Goldbach & Giuseppe Pagnozzi. It is an animation production based in Berlin, and we mainly create 2D and 3D animations for TV series, TV commercials and image films. KAISERBRAND is the center of my life. You can also find us on Facebook.

The Cheese Mountain Tragedy — This is a gallery & studio run by Johan Potma (Zozoville Gallery), Josh Bauman (Caffeinated Toothpaste), Philip Braun (Giraffentoast) & myself. It is my recreational sanctuary, I go there to get inspiration & artistic advice from my friends. You can also so find us on Facebook.

With Us Or Against Us! / WUOAU! (†) — This was a blog I wrote between 2006 an Summer 2011 in behalf of KAISERBRAND. It focussed on subjects such as lowbrow art, contemporary art, urban fine art, motion graphics, animation & the like. It still has a Facebook page with occasional updates.

Ahnengalerie — This is my youngest child: I started this project because I was jolly fed up with the blank white walls in our KAISERBRAND office & I decided to decorate them with an imaginary ancestral portrait gallery of the Victorian & Wilhelmine era. Now it became the main reason for me going to the Cheese Mountain Tragedy, where I find the solitude I sometimes long for when I am drawing.

SINCE Johan, Josh & Niels all had these cool circular stickers with their artwork & contact info, I thought I should get my own as well. The time span between that idea and pressing the order button was approximately two hours. A Coffee break included. I just added an oriental fez and an imperial moustache to the KAISERBRAND skull and drew two crossed Prussian cavalry sabers. Splendid. To achieve the vintage look I photocopied the illustration a few times with an old analogue machine I saved for that purpose. For the background I took a photo of the coffee stains on the fridge in our office.  Done. I wasted the longest period of those two hours contemplating whether the fez should be red or black.

And the moral of this story: the quicker you draw, the lesser you ruin your original idea.
I like it Raw!

THIS week I’ve closed my blog With Us Or Against Us! It was a hard decision because I’ve put so much effort into WUOAU! over the past five years, but I’ve finally realized that I cannot do everything at at the same time, even if I want to. I have too many different projects running simultaneously and decided I need to focus on the more important things. No, not private life! I’m not THAT burned out yet that I care about health & personal happiness :)
I just want to put all my energy into my company KAISERBRAND and on the weekends into my new gallery, The Cheese Mountain Tragedy.

It was great fun having a blog like WUOAU! I think it’s a fine collection of internet treasures now: almost 1000 articles written in the five years between 2006 and today.

Thank you very much to everyone who participated in this project and thank you very much for reading With Us Or Against Us! I hope you enjoyed it a little.

THAT life doen’t always work out according to plan is a matter of common knowledge. And sometimes life happens faster than scheduled. In my first post on this blog I said I’d like to have my own space that has nothing to do with my work — and exactly that happened at the end of last month: Johan Potma from the Zozoville Gallery asked me if I’d like to share a new studio space with him and I said YES! before even seeing the rooms.

Because I’m the worst workaholic you can imagine I thought this could be the best opportunity for me to step back a little (my doctor told me to). If I pay rent I have to use the space, and if I use the space once or twice a month I won’t be in the office. Sounds simple, but I’m not very disciplined when it comes to staying away from work…

Now I share a studio / gallery space with Johan Potma (Zozoville Gallery), Josh Bauman (Coffeinated Toothpaste), and Philip Braun (Giraffentoast). I’m super excited. We call it The Cheese Mountain Tragedy and we already had our Grand Opening last week. You can see pictures here

My plan is to get my hands dirty and start doing sculptures.

This is our official website: http://cheesemountaintragedy.tumblr.com/
And this the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Cheese-Mountain-Tragedy/

And to squash rumours in advance: KAISERBRAND is and will always be my number one, this new studio is just my new hobby. And the Zozoville Gallery is still in Friedrichshain and will stay there.

~*~
“The Zozoville monster creators are away in the USA and so the fill~in monsters are having a birthday party for Wolf & gallery open house!!”
~*~

My good friend Christen Bach a.k.a. Mr. Abbey was even playing a marvellous private concert with his girlfriend Eva on a tiny stage in the corner! In the end that little party turned out to be the most memorable day of my life so far.

The moral of the story: Have a party on your 30th birthday — even if you don’t want to!

Above: Mr. Abey performing “Not Now – Later”, a cover from Danish death metal band Todez.
Below: Polaroids from the Monsterously Cool Little Party

Because I really liked the simple character I sculpted it with Super Sculpey. In the collage at the bottom you can see the work in progress– I always start forming a rough shape with ordinary tin foil and then coat the model only with a thin clay layer. This way you get a homogeneously thick layer, which is favourable for the baking process. And it’s cheaper, because you save 90% of the expensive Sculpey. The baked maquette was painted with acrylic paint and the scarf was crocheted by Kathrin.

"This weather is poo."

The plain sight of the Old Colonies Club has to taste of smoky whisky & smell of sweet pipe fumes. And that means: old wooden panels with rich Victorian –or better Wilhelmine– carvings, PAINTED PITCH BLACK with white window frames. Something like this:

–without the curtains and plants, of course–

(Sorry, I can’t remember where I found those pictures)

Since everybody seems to turn into a bio veggie zombie nowadays, I am decidedly heading into the opposite direction. I like meat, I like fat, I like sugar. I like unhealthy food!

After another disappointing lunch I made this quick illustration. Perfect for a tee shirt, huh?

I Heart Meat (© Rmrs 2009)