Dieter Braun is a freelance illustrator and children’s book author from Hamburg,
Germany. He studied Communication Design at the Folkwangschule in Essen. Clients include International publications like Time Magazine, The New York Times, stern, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, Elle and Glamour.
To find out a little more about his work, we asked Dieter the following questions:
What inspires your work?
– Travel
– Wildlife & nature
– Midcentury books and illustration
– All kinds of art
– Science fiction movies from the 70’s
Tell us a bit about your process…
I start with pencil and paper and step by step the characteristic features of the animal begin to emerge sketchily or loosely. The pencil strokes are then transformed into geometric shapes, vectors, (on Adobe Illustrator)- on the computer and developed in great detail. The third step (Adobe Photoshop), the resulting areas receive their first coat of paint: first in grayscale, then in the respective animal’s colouring. By playing with the colour gradation and contrast, the portrait gains a three-dimensional appearance despite its flat composition.
As a finishing touch, shading and the structure of the fur create gentle textures and gradient colours. A couple of specks of dust floating in a ray of sunshine here, a few chin hairs there….
