Christian “Tigaer” Hecker is a digital artist, brilliant matte painter and awesome concept artist from Germany with a true love for what he does. His passion and dedication for his art shines through in all of his work and adds a depth beyond that which can be visually seen. I feel honored to be able to kick off my “Interviews” section of this site with an interview from such a great artist. Hope you all enjoy and be sure to check out Christians site to view more of his great work or even purchase a piece for yourself.
KDS::
The first 19 years of your life was spent in Bitterfeld, Germany, which was most important industrial city in the former “East Germany”. Germany has been the home of many great painters, sculptors, architects and designers. Who or what would you say has been the greatest influence that really inspired your painting while in living in Bitterfeld?
TIGAER::
Nice question but the answer is that seriously nothing inspired me in that small city. Right now it’s a small town fighting for its existence. After the fall of the wall everything pretty much fell apart and fixing all these things took forever. Just now the city is slowly recovering but still makes some crazy political decisions. But to stay on topic… no Bitterfeld or the places I lived in did not influence me at all. It was more the movies I watched and the games I played. Most importantly Star Wars and the old Wing Commander games. I always was a big SciFi fan and that’s basically where I draw my inspiration from.
Gates To Elysium
KDS::
Who would be an artist that you currently still admire to this day and why?
TIGAER::
There never really was an artist I looked up to. First when I started to seriously play around with Photoshop, Digital Painting and dug myself deeper into the matter of that field I discovered quite a few artists that were just amazing. Gary Tonge, Dylan Cole, Ryan Church to name a few. Last but not least Syd Mead for his contributions to movies like TRON and Blade Runner.
Citizen Erazed
KDS::
Did you ever have any formal schooling or is your work the result of good old fashion grit and determination?
TIGAER::
I never attended any art school. I tried to apply for one in my very early Photoshop days but they actually weren’t teaching what I was looking for. And that was to work digital. That must have been 2002 or so. Later on I made an internship in a Webdesign company and figured that it’s not so much fun too. The time there felt too much like plain ‘work’. So I kept doing my own thing and started to seriously invest my time into Digital Painting in 2005. I had success with some of my early work which kept me going and got me my first chance to write a Workshop for a magazine. Motivation is everything.
WOLF
KDS::
Matte painting has been around for a long time, since about the time motion pictures began. Are you aware of any techniques used today as back then and if so which of those do you find yourself drawn to using the most in your work?
TIGAER::
Matte Painting drastically changed in the early 90s when computers became more handy, flexible and of course faster. With Photoshop and the first graphic tablets and compositing programs it took only a few years before the whole industry migrated to digital. Today you pretty much have to work digital because all the HD literally makes it impossible to work with pure paintings. So it’s best to use photo references as often as possible to give it all a realistic look.
City View
KDS::
Have you yourself had the honor of working on any motion pictures or do you aspire to in the future. And if so what would be your ideal dream film to work on?
TIGAER::
I would love to work on a bigger movie project. I would love to see how they bring together all the different elements. Mixing 2d with 3d. Animating paintings and scenes. All that is surely very fascinating stuff. So far did not work on a big project but it’s definitely on my list and I hope to scratch it off there sooner than later. The ideal movie would be a Sci-Fi one of course.
The Chase
KDS::
What aspects does a matte painting have to possess in order for you to feel it is a great piece of work?
TIGAER::
That depends if it’s made just for fun or for a movie. In a movie it just has to work and it must look pretty much photo realistic. There it doesn’t matter what you see in it. It just must work. When it’s a just for fun painting then the most important thing would be the atmosphere, lighting, composition and detail. A lot of things have to come together and that’s why there is more room for errors. There’s hardly a piece that I love to 100%. That’s why Concept Art is very interesting. It’s very rough and leaves a lot to your own interpretation. That stuff is easier to love.
KDS::
At one point in your career even you were a novice. What was the defining moment in your career that made you feel that you had finally entered into the circle of the professionals?
TIGAER::
That must have been the moment when I held the 3DWorld Issue in my hands that had the first workshop in it I ever wrote. I was very proud of that and still am. Even if some more workshops for different magazines followed since then. Also the inclusion of my work into the Expose artbook series was great. To have your work amongst all the most amazing digital art of the planet. That’s a cool thing.
The Gates
KDS::
When you were first starting out, what did you do for a living?
TIGAER::
I’m the perfect example of the poor artist trying to find his way to the top. Basically smaller jobs to get at least some basic income. Small commissions for digital art work. When it comes to that I’m still not where I want to be… but it’s slowly building up.
The Expedition
KDS::
When your not working on a painting, how do you like to spend your time?
TIGAER::
There is hardly a minute I’m not thinking about what I could do in Photoshop or Vue that could bring me another nice and big painting. Beside of that I love movies so I try to go to see them as often as possible. I also have a guitar that screams to be learned more. There are also five birds that keep me busy at home. One Parakeet and 4 Zebra finches. Photography is a nice thing too. But that’s a bit on halt right now. Waiting for the summer I guess.
Future City
KDS::
What resources would you recommend for those digital artists who are just starting out down the road of matte painting?
TIGAER::
Mattepainting.org should be a nice start. The rest is not easy. First of all it is not wrong to have some basic understanding about lighting and painting in general. Granted that I haven’t had any knowledge about painting when I started, it should be possible for everyone who is willing enough to put the right time and effort into it. It’s a long road and takes a lot of passion for the matter. Even I would not say that I am where I want to be on that long road. There is always something to learn. It’s also a good thing to get yourself into an art community where you have a chance of getting feedback on your work. Sometimes it’s not easy to motivate yourself but you have to overcome that sometimes. Keep trying to get better and sooner or later you will get somewhere.
Epica
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Hervor
| "My your ribs writhe with worms, may your barrow be an anthill where you rot, unless you speak with me, sons of Arngrim, all girt with battle-gear, keen blades at your sides and bright spears stained with blood. Death has made you cowards, but I have kin-right here. I come for the sword made by Dvalin. Why should dead hands hold the blade?" |
Hervor was a powerful, fearless Viking warrior woman who didn't take crap from anyone – living or dead – avenged her father's death with a magical sword, led Norse raiding parties in the pillage and plunder of unsuspecting civilizations, and proved to everyone under her command that she had bigger, brassier balls than any other Viking warrior in Norway.
Hervor's father was a great Viking warrior, and her mother's father was a head-splitting insane-o-bot berserker, so she didn't really have a chance to become anything other than a completely over-the-top assbeater. She was born not long after her father was gloriously slain in a Valhalla-approved bloody mess, dying with another warrior's sword lodged in his abdomen. Everyone who knew Hervor's dad knew that the guy was kind of a bloodthirsty murder-machine, so when the young girl was born her frightened neighbors all suggested that the best course of action might well have been to just take the baby out into the woods and leave it to be eaten by wild dogs. This didn't happen, and Hervor grew up pretty much exactly the way everyone was worried she might. She was tall, strong, and tough as hell, with reddish-gold hair and a sword arm that wouldn't quit. At a time when other girls in her village were learning how to knit and weave and paint pots and do other boring nonsense, Hervor was practicing horsemanship, archery, and swordfighting, routinely beating the neighbor boys into crumpled heaps or sending them running home to their mommies with black eyes and broken bones.
Hervor decided she didn't really want to settle down and be a bored housewife when she was obviously so adept at rendering grown-ass men unconscious with a few well-placed sword blows to the throat, so she decided to forgo the homemaker profession for a while and become a badass shieldmaiden instead. Now, I talk about the shieldmaidens briefly in my book (insert imperceptibly-subtle-yet-shameless self-promotion here), but the short version is that they were hardcore warrior-women who strapped on the chainmail, grabbed a spear, and spent the warm summer months sailing around on Drakkar longships getting their rape, plunder, and pillage on whenever the opportunity presents itself. I should note that I use the word "rape" here in the old-school manner meaning, "to seize or take away by force", rather than the more commonly-used definition, though I suppose you can never really be sure when you're talking about Vikings of any gender. Regardless of the verbiage, Hervor was really awesome at it, because she was so tough, daring, and charismatic that after the leader of her village's raiding party was killed in battle the other Vikings nominated her to take his place and lead them to wealth and victory.
Hervor didn't disappoint – she and her salty sea-dogs looted unsuspecting villages with the best of them, and she won honor and glory at the pointy edge of her blade. However, one thing was still really bugging the shit out of her: Her father was famous not only for cleaving people from head-to-groin with mighty sword-strokes, but for carrying an incredibly bitchin' epic-level +5 sword known as Tyrfing, and she wanted to get in on that action ASAP. Tyrfing was an insanely-hardcore weapon that, according to legend, had been constructed by the Dwerger in their magical subterranean fires of intense awesomeness. This Dwarf-forged sword had a hilt fashioned of solid gold, and was so deadly that so much as a nick from the blade was universally fatal. However, there's a catch – the blade was cursed. It was more bloodthirsty than a school of mutant man-eating Great Whites having a feeding frenzy in chummed-up water, and every time it was drawn from its scabbard it consumed a life – either in battle, or by driving the wielder insane and forcing him to slaughter one of his own friends. After Hervor's dad's death, the blade was considered so unlucky and dangerous that it was buried with him, presumably never to be used again. Hervor had other ideas. This kickass blade was her inheritance, and she certainly killed enough people to make it well worth its while, and she was determined to recover the heirloom. One day, in between raids, she and her crew sailed out to the island where her father was buried with the intention of recovering Tyrfing.
This is supposed to be a picture of the Dwarves handing Tyrfing over to Hervor's father,
though honestly I really have no damn clue what the hell is going on here.
So Hervor and her homeskillets arrive at this totally creepy island in the middle of the night, and the first things they notice are huge-ass fires and ghosts flying around all over the place like crazy. Every man under her command completely soiled their loincloths and refused to get out of the ship, fearing that the grounds were more haunted than Dracula's underwear. Hervor proved that she was the only Viking with the balls to set foot on the spooky island, jumping down, politely informing her colleagues that they're all total pussies, and then confidently walking over to the funeral mound where her father's corpse lay. Then, just to further demonstrate the fact that this sword-chucking chick wasn't scared of anything, she started yelling out insults and curses to call her dead dad back from beyond the grave. Dad responded by throwing up a huge curtain of fire outside his funeral mount, but Hervor just jumped through the flames and reiterated the fact that she wasn't fucking leaving without her sword.
That was it. She had now summoned the dead, and the next thing you know she was staring into the lifeless eyes of the ghosts of her father and uncles, all decked out in their full battle gear looking pissed. They tell her there's no fucking way she's getting Tyrfing – this thing is cursed as hell, and will bring doom and ruin on her family. Hervor could give a rat's ass. She tells this army of angry spear-toting ghosts that magical swords are no good to dead men, so fork that shit over before she has to start cracking poltergeist skulls together until they explode into protoplasm. Hervor's dad, understandably impressed with his daughter's moxie, reveals the blade – it's in a pit of fire, surrounded by angry ghosts who arbitrarily hate her. Hervor doesn't give a shit. She walks over, ignores the ghosts, sticks her hand in the fire, pulls out Tyrfing, gives everyone the double-middle-fingers, and goes back to her ship, only to find that her associates had already left her because they were pussies. The big, bad Vikings had watched from the shore when the fires and ghost activity became more epic, and ran for it like scared little bitches. Hervor found a way off the island (the sources aren't specific as to how), got back to her homeland, and continued her career as a war-band leader.
Hervor served as an inspiration for the Eowyn character in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
With Tyrfing at her side, Hervor became even more unstoppable in combat. In comic book terms, this weapon made her go from regular Jean Grey to Dark Phoenix, and it wasn't long before she was well-known as a murderous asskicker that lived to torment to coasts of Scandinavia, England, and Europe with her vicious sword of face-bifurcating. Of course, Tyrfing also did its thing and made her kind of become completely brutally insane. Like, one time she was chilling out playing dice with the King of Norway, when some douchebag started futzing with the sword, so Hervor freaked out and murdered the dude right in the middle of the royal throne room. I'd like to think that it was so hardcore that everyone clapped rather than arrest her, because if anyone can appreciate that shit, it's the Vikings.
Hervor eventually settled down, got married, and had a couple kids. Her son Heidrik inherited Tyrfing, and its bloodlusting effects seemed to affect him a lot more than his mom. Heidrik ended up murdering his brother and his foster son with it, and eventually died in battle surrounded by a bunch of dead Huns (Heidrik's own daughter, who was named Hervor after her grandma, also fought as a shieldmaiden in the battle and was killed in action). Heidrik married a princess, though, so his life wasn't all about agony and misery and being stabbed to death by Huns.
We don't really know what happened to Hervor after her son inherited Tyrfing. Some say she died in combat while fighting in a war of vengeance, and others claim she just grew old and died a peaceful, boring death at home. A later saga briefly mentions a mysterious Valkyrie named Hervor, so it's presumably also possible that this war-chief's awesomeness helped her ascend to semi-goddesshood. That would be pretty much super-kickass.
Hervor Junior dying amid some slaughtered Hunnic warriors.
Links:
Northvegr Saga The Lay of Hervor
The Poetic Edda
Sources:
Barring-Gould, Sabine. A Book of Folklore BiblioBazaar, 2007.
Belloni Du Chaillu, Paul. Ivar the Viking Scribner, 1910.
Monaghan,Patricia. Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines ABC-CLIO, 2009.
Tilton, Lois. Written in Venom. Wildside, 2000.
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