Christian Retzlaff

Work History

• Project Auditor for 2d Art

  S4G School for Games GmbH

  October 2018 - Present

  Helping students with their game projects and evaluating them based on their performance and progression in Winter semester 2018/19

• Founder and Creative Director

  GameArtBrain- Creation & Consulting

  February 2017 - Present

  European 2D Game Art Vendor.
• 

  Professor of Game Art

  HMKW University of Applied Sciences for Media, Communication

  October 2020 - April 2023

  Berlin, Germany

  Teaching courses like:
  Interactive & Visual Storytelling
  Concept Art
  Digital Illustration
  Digital Painting
  Basics of Game Design
• 

  Art Director mobile game "Hemp Paradise" (Remote)

  Redhood Games

  April 2020 - December 2020

  Berlin, Germany
• 

  Art Director mobile game "The Goldbergs: Back to the 80s" (Remote)

  Lumen Games

  April 2019 - March 2020

  Berlin

  Booked to help the team finding a style for their new 2d mobile idle title.
  Working hands on and creating characters, backgrounds, maps and UI but also feedbacking the art team to derive to a presentable style.
  Being involved in the production pipeline through canban to oversee the quality of the whole production. Feedbacking art and UI directly to the artists by over paints.
• 

  Consulting Art Director mobile game "My Pizzeria - Stories of Our Time

  Melsoft

  January 2019 - April 2019

  Berlin und Umgebung, Deutschland

  -reviewing "My Pizzeria - Stories of Our Time" before launch and check art and graphics for quality
  -writing clear feedback documents for the style and look
  -giving overpaint suggestions for UI, characters, backgrounds and general colors
  -analysing the market and competitors for the best style fit
  -folllow up directly with the team on slack and feedback and approve the changes
  
  Reviewing and feedbacking other pre launch games as well as life games like "My Café"

• Art Director

  Nosy Jones

  April 2017 - December 2018

  Berlin

  Working freelance for 18 Months as the remote art director on Chicken Pox, a mobile casual 3D top-down third-person-view collecting game.
  Working with a freelance team spread across the whole world.
  My work included deligating and feedbacking an art team (including 3D modellers, animators, level designers, UI, VFX artists and concept artists), structuring workflow on Redmine and Trello, working hands-on doing over paints on 3D and 2D art, designing assets, sketch concepting levels, creating style documentations.
  Release Christmas 2018

• Senior Consulting Artist "Chicken Pox: Scrambled Eggs!" (Remote)

  Nosy Jones

  May 2017 - December 2018

  My work included:
  Working freelance as Senior Consulting Artist on a mobile casual 3D top-down third-person-view collecting game.
  -Deligating and feedbacking an art team ( including 3D modellers, animators, level designers, VFX artists and concept artists).
  -Structuring workflow on Redmine
  -Working hands-on doing over paints on 3D and 2D Art
  -Designing assets
  -sketch concepting levels
  -Creating style documentations
• 

  Art Director mobile game "Yuneeko/My Love" (Freelance Remote)

  Smilegate

  October 2017 - March 2018

  Berlin und Umgebung, Deutschland

  Art Directing "My Love/Yuneeko" a mobile interactive story game for the german market.
• 

  Senior Art Director (Games)

  Aeria Games GmbH

  May 2016 - January 2017

  Berlin Area, Germany

  After the acquisition by Gamigo and the decision to dissolve of the Mobile Art Department to be more project oriented beeing assigned to the game Zoozap (Global Release 06.09.2016)
  - art direction
  - planing pipeline
  - communication to project manager
  - producing in-game art assets
  - leading team of 7 Artists
  - hand on feedback and asset approval
• 

  Head of Mobile Art

  Aeria Games GmbH

  March 2015 - November 2016

  Berlin

  Manage a team of 14 people consisting of 10 Graphic Designers and 4 Game Artists.
  -Be responsible for hiring, firing, raises, promotions and recommendations
  
  -Check outcome of art and design tests of new applicants and lead skype and personal interviews with promising canditates
  -Lead the general art/design process on new incoming games
  -Oversee and maintain the quality on running games
  
  -Find best matching arthouses for new projects and provide an art test for the needed style
  -Provide external art houses with hands on feedback on their artwork for running projects
  -Meet with external service providers to discuss workflow and prices
  -Work structured within Jira and Trello
  -Control work capacity and deadlines
  -Collect the produced art and design and present it to the higher management to gather feedback for further process
  -Defend taken choices on art direction
  
  -Give hands on feedback to the team
• 

  Lead Artist

  Aeria Games GmbH

  September 2014 - March 2015

  Berlin Area, Germany

• Lecturer of "Advanced Digital Illustration"​

  BTK University of Applied Sciences

  October 2013 - September 2014

  Berlin Area, Germany

• Art Director (Game Art)

  Stenarts Ltd.

  February 2013 - September 2014

  Berlin Area, Germany

  Working with the art team on game visuals for Gameduell, Deep Silver, Innogames, internal apps and other.
• 

  Key posing artist

  WunderWerk GmbH

  January 2014 - April 2014

  Berlin Area, Germany

  Key Posing Artist for feature film "Trenk - The little Knight"

• Animation Supervisor

  Trickfilmlounge

  July 2013 - October 2013

  Berlin

  Supervising preproduction and later 4 animators animating traditionally directly in TVPaint for the TV Spot and a follw up of a board game called "Lotti Karotti" by Ravensburger.
• 

  2d Character Animator

  Sandnes Media AS

  May 2013 - June 2013

  Berlin

  Animating traditionally directly in TVPaint for the credits and a dream sequence of the norwegian life action film „ Mormor og de åtte ungene“ (Grandma and the Eight Children, 2013)

• Storyboard Artist

  scopas medien AG

  November 2012 - January 2013

  Berlin

  Doing Storyboards for the 3d TV series "Jonalu".

• 2d Character Animator

  Studio Rakete GmbH

  September 2012 - October 2012

  Hamburg Area, Germany

  Animating traditionally directly in ToonBoom on Ari Folman's next feature Film "The Congress"

• 2d Character Animator

  Bitteschön.tv

  February 2012 - August 2012

  Berlin

  Animating traditionally directly in TVPaint on Ari Folman's feature Film "The Congress"

• Comic Book Artist

  Stenarts Ltd.

  September 2011 - December 2011

  Berlin Area, Germany

  Working on Thorsten Kieckers Comic "Ria" Vol 2. Doing storyboards, posing and final clean up of characters.
  Also animating assets and effects on buildings for the Browsergame "StoneAgeKings" by GorillaGaming.

• 2d Character Animator

  Schesch Filmkreation

  April 2011 - September 2011

  Berlin Area, Germany

  Animating traditionally directly in TVPaint for feature Film "the Mondmann".

• Character Animator

  Bitteschön.tv

  April 2011 - May 2011

  Berlin

  Animating on Musicvideo Milk & Sugar Feat Miriam Makeba - Hi-a Ma (Pata Pata)

• Senior 2d Character Animator

  Studio 352, Luxemburg

  October 2010 - April 2011

  Luxemburg

  Working as a fulltime senior 2D traditional Animator on feature film "Le Jour des Corneilles" on site in Luxembourg.

• 2D Character Animator

  Accio, Barcelona

  April 2010 - June 2010

  Spain

  Animating main characters for feature film ''Little big panda'' on site in Barcelona.
• 

  2d Animator

  Freelance

  January 2010 - March 2010

  Commercial work for Mediamarkt a german Tech-store.
  Lineart animated digitally in TVPaint.

• Character Animator

  Bitteschön.tv

  October 2009 - December 2009

  Berlin

  Animating on the Music video "Ne Leiche" from SDP feat. Sido

• Character Designer

  Stenarts Ltd.

  June 2009 - September 2009

  Berlin

  Character Designer designing Characters for german 2d feature "Little Big Panda"

• Assistant Animator/ Junior Animator

  Django Films

  April 2007 - April 2009

  Scotland

  Animating and cleaning main characters for Silvain Chomet's 2D animation feature "L'Illusioniste".

• 2d Animator

  Django Films

  April 2007 - April 2009

  Edinburgh, Großbritannien
• 

  2d Character Animator

  MotionWorks Gmbh

  August 2006 - December 2006

  Halle, Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland

  Animating main characters traditionally on paper for german 2d feature film "Little Dodo.

• Shortfilm Co Director

  Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen Konrad Wolf

  May 2004 - May 2006

  Berlin und Umgebung, Deutschland

  Co-Direct with M.Ramke an animation shortfilm called "Dirtmonsters" as diploma project.
  Manage a team of up to 12 people including 2d artists, 3d artists, animators, sound designer, script writer, music composer.
  
  https://youtu.be/TW3G62vPczU

• Freelance Character Designer

  Stenarts Ltd.

  January 2005 - February 2006

  -Creating Illustrations with given characters for several projects
  -Creating character model packs with given characters
  -Designing characters for several projects
• 

  Freelance Illustrator

  Axel Springer (Berliner Morgenpost)

  January 1996 - April 2004

  "Berliner Morgenpost" is a local daily newspaper.
  I did monthly based Illustrations for different departments.

• Freelance Illustrator

  VOSS PUBLISHING eK

  April 2003 - January 2004

  Berlin Area, Germany

  Illustrations with "Vossi" the self designed mascot of the magazin
• 

  Intern 2d Art/Animation

  MotionWorks Gmbh

  March 2002 - August 2002

  Halle (Saale), Sachsen-Anhalt, Deutschland
• 

  Graphic Design Internship

  Publicis Pixelpark

  June 2000 - August 2000

  Berlin

  Department Online Advertising