Caryad Portrait

Deutsch to german version

At the age of six, my parents and me left Germany and moved to Greece. We lived on the island of Ithaca which I explored on my own, rarely 'disturbed' by adults. I certainly enjoyed much more freedom than other children of my age. If I wasn't swimming in the ocean I usually roamed the ruins of Odysseus' Palace. There I found a bronze necklace which I put on at once. Since then I'm wearing it, unable to remove this ancient artifact (a torque) of Celtic origin. Apparently it is bewitched and until now I wasn't able to find out how it made its way to Ithaca.

Even if this artifact did never any harm to me, I assume that it is as well responsible for the Celtic ornaments which I try to implement in virtually any of my pictures as for the pointed ears of my son.

A couple of years later we returned to Germany. Not surprisingly, it was very difficult for me to accept a well organised life with school instead of playing in ancient ruins and swimming in a pool instead of the open sea.

As long as I can remember I draw. At first, mostly beautiful women (at that time I wasn't able to draw men, who were 'of course' not so pretty as women). Later my topics changed as I started to read fantastic novels, but I still prefer drawing beautiful women. In the arts course at school I was always the best of my class and I had no doubt that I would become an artist. (Well, almost: For a time I was also interested in flower arranging but carrying heavy sacks filled with potting soil changed my opinion very quickly).

I finished high school with a qualification for art college. Nonetheless, several academies rejected my application (and right now I'm very glad about it), because my pictures contained 'too much fantasy elements' for them.

In 1993 I started doing illustrations for the German role playing game 'Das Schwarze Auge' (the top-selling RPG in Germany, also in English as 'The Dark Eye'). Since then I did artwork for many other German editions of RPGs ('Splittermond','Ars Magica', 'Vampire The Masquerade', 'In Nomine', 'Cthulhu' and 'Arcane Codex'), book covers and interior artwork for novels and magazines under the pseudonym 'Caryad'.

Mein Arbeitsplatz

The painting 'Eva' was published on the cover of 'Schwermetall-Magazin' (the German equivalent of Heavy Metal / Métal Hurlant magazine) and later reprinted as a poster. My art book 'Gothic Moonlight' was published by 'Ideenschmiede Paul&Paul' art studio. I also did the interior artwork for the 'Gezeitenwelt' line of fantasy novels (five so far). Since early 2006, I also illustrate children’s books, most notably Wimmelbücher ( for F. X. Schmid (operating as an imprint for Ravensburger Buchverlag), many titles for XENOS Verlag and some jigsaw puzzles for Ravensburger Spieleverlag (my son Rowan likes them so much that he proudly presented them to his school class).
Among the informational flyers and brochures I illustrated a great deal were done for the Lünen Municipal Sewage Authority: Stadtbetrieb Abwasserbeseitigung Lünen (SAL).
Besides all this I also worked for private people from time to time.

I prefer to work in black and white – black is also my favourite colour – with ink and/or pencil but I'm also using oil-, water- and gouache-technique – colour has it's own fascination.

Usually, I'm sitting at my desk drawing or reading a book. Once or twice a year I grab my foam-and-latex sword and chase orcs in a LARP (Live Action Role Playing). If possible, I also play RPGs where I hunt vampires or fly with my space-ship through the galaxy.

I have a great passion for movies and photography. I like the effectfully dressed up ladies of Irina Ionesco as well as the 'sloppier' ones by Jan Saudek. I also love art movies like 'Sin City' but I also enjoy classic popcorn movies. I also like well-crafted comic books or graphic novels telling very special and unusual stories like the ones of Neil Gaiman. Somewhen I want to create my own comic and to publish an erotic artwork about Celtic gods and heroes – of course which the inevitable Celtic ornaments.

Photos

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Caryad Caryad - Bei Dr. Sketchy Caryad auf dem Monster-Weihnachtsmarkt
Caryad Illustration / Artwork
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