CGSociety :: Artist Profile
6 April 2010, by Barbara Robertson

Are artists born or trained? Read about Michael Kutsche for a few minutes and you'll vote, 'born.

"I started drawing when I was four," says the talented artist. "And I was always doodling around since then, off and on. When I was 14, I guess I got serious."

Serious meant studying on his own for the most part. "I did everything art-related at home," he says. "We had a regular art class at school, but I didn't go to art school."

And yet, not long after he turned 30, the self-taught artist was designing characters for Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' from his studio in Berlin. And that commercial work has led to support for his personal work, including an upcoming exhibition at the Arludik Gallerie in Paris.

Michael Kutsche busy at a doodle.

Burt

"It's amazing," Kutsche says. "I would have never thought this door would open up so suddenly for an artist in Germany. It's because of the Internet, CGSociety and this kind of community. It would have never been possible as fast before. We have all these tools. Facebook. Online printing services. You can do your own advertising online and it doesn't cost anything. You can bring out your own book. It's incredible what tools you have as an artist to market yourself."

Kutsche was one of three character designers the Disney's 'Alice;' the other two were Kei Acedera and Bobby Chiu, and Imageworks discovered them through galleries of their work in CGPortfolio. The Internet has become, for concept artists and character designers, the equivalent of the stool in Schwab's drugstore, where, according to Hollywood legend, Lana Turner spun from high school student to actor.

"They had an show with the theme 'Alice in Wonderland' and they saw my artwork for the film," he says. "They offered me a chance to do a solo exhibition of watercolors and oil paintings, so I'm doing this between projects."

Since 'Alice,' Kutsche has worked on character designs for 'John Carter of Mars' and 'Thor,' and is currently involved with an unannounced project for DreamWorks Animation. It's a fast track for a self-taught artist.

Superman

'Alice' caterpillar concept. Image courtesy Disney Enterprises Inc.

Born in Berlin in 1977, Kutsche spent his young life in Marburg, a town just north of Frankfurt. Although he didn't attend art school, his late grandfather's oil paintings hung in his house, and his father regularly took him to art museums.

"That had a big impact on me," he said. "Especially the paintings of Lucien Freud. I'd look at the paintings and try to figure out how the hell the painter did that thing. It made me feel bad at times. I'd think 'Oh my god, I'm never going to get there.'"

His father, who had trained as an architect, but worked as a programmer, had a second influence on Kutsche. "He bought me a Commodore 64 first and later, a PC," he says. "He would give me lessons in writing simple programs. I think that contact with the computer at an early age was good because it wasn't complicated for me to switch to working in digital art."

In fact, when he was 18, Kutsche landed his first job, a 'volunteership' for a small 3D studio. "They hired me because of my portfolio, which was mostly pencil drawings, but had a few 3D renderings that I had done with CorelDream 3D," he says.

That studio failed, but a new studio founded by his co-workers started up and they offered him a full-time position. "We did everything from commercials to music videos and advertising," he says.

'Alice' caterpillar concept. Image courtesy Disney Enterprises Inc.

Fight Club in oil.

And because the studio was small, Kutsche did a little bit of everything – modeling, rigging, animation, and lighting.
Especially, lighting. "Because of my background with painting," he says, "I had a good head for colors, for making things look realistic and for making atmosphere. So they always let me do the lighting."

After five years, though, Kutsche quit to become a freelance illustrator. He realized that he wanted to work only on the ideas, the concept, rather than the entire 3D process.

When a friend of a colleague pointed him toward what became his first freelance job, creating magazine cover artwork for SEGA/The Creative Assembly's 'Total War' title, he was on his way.

"They would usually hire a 3D company to do the artwork," he says, "but they had three days and the company couldn't do it in that small time scale. So, I did something that looked 3D, but wasn't. It was a lucky situation." He would soon have a second bit of luck.

He left Frankfurt and moved to Hamburg with the woman who was to become his wife, and then in 2006, the couple moved to Berlin. "We had a huge flat and I had a studio at home, so I could do my large-scale oil paintings," he says. "It was cheap to rent space, and I loved the lifestyle in Berlin – always something going on." There, he worked for SEGA and for advertising agencies. And, he might still be doing that if not for a colleague who pushed him to put his work online.

"He said, 'The CGSociety gives awards,' so I started with a Portfolio on CGSociety," he says. "From that time on, I got a lot of exposure."

That exposure led directly to an opportunity to apply for the job as a character designer for 'Alice in Wonderland.' "I got an email from Sony Pictures Imageworks," he says. "They were looking for a character designer and they had looked on CGSociety.

They said it was for a movie project, but they didn't say which movie or director." At fmx, he met with Debbie Denise, an executive vice president for Imageworks. Burton and visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston had selected his images; she offered him the job.