Below you can read the interview with the 3D Valley Featured artist of January 2006. Markus creates stunning landscapes with Terragen. He is also with us for a long time and we thought it would be nice to know a little bit more about him.

Click here to visit Markus Gallery album
Click here to visit Markus website
Click here for interviews with other artists

Q1.
Christa: Can you tell us a bit about yourself: Who are you and what do you do in your daily life?

Markus: My name is Markus Gann, I live in Germany near Stuttgart and I am working at Daimler Chryler for 20 years. It was in the may of 1968 when I took the first look at the world. So I am 37 years old now, but there is still a little child in me... I like to play with these wonderful graphic programs in my free time :o)

Q2.
Christa: When did you first notice you had artistic talent?

Markus: I think it was when I was 16 years old. We had to do water paintings in the school and I had very good grades. From this time on I did a lot of aquarelles. Later I turned to do computer graphics.

Q3.
Christa: Do you have traditional art experience?

Markus: Yes, see my previous answer. I also draw small pictures with pencil, and I made portraits. If this is traditional... I take pictures with my camera.

Toskana	Bears in balloon	Marken

Q4.
Christa: Which software packages do you use for your artwork?

Markus: Mainly I am using the wonderful landscape program Terragen. Most of my pictures were created with Terragen. It is a very simple landscape program, but it is also very powerful! For all 2D works I am using Photoshop

Q5.
Christa: Can you tell us a bit of the way you work on your art?

Markus: Mostly I begin without a plan! I take a terrain that looks interesting and look for a good point of view. After that I make an atmosphere with a great mood. The last work I do the surface and the water. The ideas come while I work on the picture. Suddenly I want to have a dark image with a light from the behind or a deep canyon where you look down to the deep. Sometimes I want to do things with Terragen what no man did before. At these moments I had to do a plan. Questions like: How can I do the terrain that I need, or is the water that I want possible in Terragen or do I have to do post work with Photoshop.

Dark clouds		A new adventure

Q6.
Christa: What and/or who inspires you?

Markus: Everything inspires me! The nature of course, some magazines... or TV, Cinema! And... works from other artists!

Q7.
Christa: Do you have a favorite piece of your own artwork and if so, why?

Markus: At the moment I like Sailing a lot. It is my favorite picture, because it is a dream of silence where you can sail away from the daily work.

Sailing

Q8.
Christa: What is your goal as an artist?

Markus: I don’t know. I have to think about this...

Q9.
Christa: Besides 3D Valley, which other CG sites do you visit regularly?

Markus: I prefer the following CG sites: Renderosity, DeviantART, Galleryof3d.com, and Terradreams.de the German Terragen site.

The big red	Light at horizon

Q10.
Christa: Do you have any tips for the artists who admire your work?

Markus: You have to take the time the picture need.

Christa: Thanks for the interview Marcus!

Click here to visit Markus Gallery album
Click here to visit Markus website
Click here for interviews with other artists