.I.A. – Judging by your Microscopic series, it seems you are interested in the life forms in the tiny world. What got you interested in the alien microscopic world? Do these creatures communicate with each other? Are they based on real-life microscopic creatures?

T.B. - No, they are not based on real life creatures. I like the enormous complexity of microscope images. There are details you never see. It's always there but you don't realize it – a complex world living around or inside us. What motivated me to start this series was the complexity and strangeness of these forms. So it started as an experiment to create such a complex surface with a shader. Afterwards it was simple fun to create such strange shapes and to enhance or modify the structures step by step, to create tentacles to give them the opportunity to realize their environment and so on.

I.A. - Can you explain how you've built this series?

T.B. - I like to work on series, because it's a good way to see if the basic idea is good. For me working on art projects is more like a kind of journey or adventure. I like to be surprised by the result. So I normally start with some free forms from which I have sometimes a rough idea in mind and sometimes not. I don't worry much about the final result when starting an image. I like it to see it grow step by step. It's more like a self running process.

I.A. - Who do you think has influenced you in your career and in which way?

T.B. - Many people, too much to mention them all. Surely classical artists like Picasso, Goya, Richter, Helnwein and Giger, but also many CG artists from all over the world and definitely my wife and son who always support me. From a general point of view I would say every little job or contact influenced me in one way or the other and was useful for me to get where I am. To my mind, it's very important to be open-minded.

I.A. - What's the importance of light and colors in your artwork?

T.B. – Personally, I would say that the light is a key element I focus on. I like quiet colours. Light lets you define the shape you are interested in and gives the materials their appearance. You can shed light on and dim special areas and sculpt out the shapes. So for me modeling defines the base but lighting and shading sculpt out the final image.

I.A. – Can you tell us about the relationship between art and mathematic in your artwork?

T.B. - To be honest there is not much relationship, because I'm really not good at maths. All the shapes are more or less a product of a handmade work. Surely I sometimes try to write a script to make some work steps easier and there is some basic maths in some of the procedural textures, but it's nothing difficult or special. There is surely some enhanced maths in the procedural patterns I use, but I didn’t write them. I use them because of the complex structures and variety I can generate with them.

I.A. - Your abstract series, is very intricate and to me, very musical. Have you thought about some of them being stringed instruments for alien composers? There is movement and delicacy even in the stills, what inspires such work? How many polygons or other measurements of surface are involved in an advanced scene like these?

T.B. – It’s an interesting idea to see it as some kind of music instruments. I had never thought about it. But that's exactly the reason why I like to work on such kind of abstract images, everyone sees his own things in it. While there is some kind of basic direction in my images like feelings of movement and music and maybe something related to time, everyone can build up his own story around it.

The inspiration simply comes from the making process. I often start with some curves or an interesting shape and then step by step the image grows. It's like a dialogue between the nascent image and me where the final image is some kind of snapshot of this dialogue.

Concerning the technical issues: Since I worked in Realsoft 3D on the images of the abstract.0104 series there were no polygons. Realsoft has it own way to interpret objects and you mostly don't work with polygons. The wire lines are created during rendertime and can be modified in their appearance with a custom shader. I didn't use any scripts either but just a combination of tools which are out of the box. For example you can convert a nurb surface to nurb lines and then deform them with some kind of displacement. I've written some tutorials on these technical topics which can be found on my website.
After I started using XSI for my commercial work it took some time before I used it for personal work as well. I had to rethink some areas, create some small scripts to get similar functions than in Realsoft, and had to reorganize my method somehow. But on the other side I also got a lot of new possibilities. I think a typical scene in XSI has maybe around about 5 million polygons. But it depends on the scene, sometimes it's less and sometimes more polygons are created during rendertime by using displacement or different geometry approximation types.

I.A. - You've also made artworks for commercials. Can you explain us how different a creative process it is?

T.B. - The main difference for me is that for a commercial project you have to focus on a goal which is clearly defined. So you have to work out a concept for each new project and have to plan what and when to do things to hold the deadline. That's exactly the reason why I see the creation of abstract images as a great balance to my commercial work. It gives me the freedom to experiment and to discover new paths. Whereas when you have a tight deadline you often don't have much time to experiment and have to trust your experience. And sometimes it's very useful to experiment and to try new things to extend your image expression. On the other side commercial projects are often very interesting and they force you to improve your skills by staying focused on the job’s demands. Besides, team work on commercial projects is a great thing. You can learn so much from other people. And when there is a good team, possibilities are multiplied.