Moderator interviews/Riess
From RelicWiki
- This interview is transcribed from the original thread.
Hello ladies and gents of the Studio, and anyone else who might have wandered past, and welcome to the fourth in the series of The Moderator Interviews. As well as being an unnecessarily grandiose title which helps fool people into thinking this is actually something that is in some way endorsed by the staff (It most certainly is not, and so should be treated with fear and suspicion) and making me seem like a big deal, it’s also fairly accurate. These interviews, all of which can be found in my forum signature, are designed to help the members of this fine forum known as Relic News get to know their moderators just that little bit better, and hopefully bring y’all up to speed with what’s going on with these otherwise elusive and mysterious figures who haunt our very dreams. Erm, I’m getting carried away, so I’ll try and get on with it.
Today we're interviewing the king of #art Riess, whose yearbook entry can be found at the following location:
http://relicnews.com/yearbook/2006/240/
So, without further ado and lollygagging about, the interview itself. After reading, please feel free to post any other questions you might have for Riess, and I’ll update them in this main post if and when he has time to answer them. If you have any (constructive) criticism of the interview itself I’m all ears, as I’m completely blagging this whole interview thing Enjoy!
Obtuse: obligatory bio, if you please.
[Is that an oxymoron?]
Riess: For all who missed it: I am Riess, formerly known as RiesstiuIV. I'm 21 years of age, I live in Vienna, Austria, I study Geophysics at the university of Vienna, and I'm a hobby artist.
Obtuse: Well, since this interview will live in the studio I guess the first most obvious question should be asked: How did you get into art?
Riess: Hah, that's one hard question for me actually. As far as I can think back there has never been a time when I was not into "art" of some sorts. I started, as anyone, scribbling as a little kid, and I moved on to drawing my favourite comic characters of the time, and so on. And I always scribbled something in school; usually had an extra sheet of paper under each book in every class. Yeah, and... here I am now.
Obtuse: Were there any artists that stick in your mind as influencing you while you were growing up?
Riess: Yes, I think so.. although I didn't know their names at the time, I can say I was influenced by the comic and cartoon artists whose work I enjoyed. The ones that come to mind now are Chuck Jones (Loonie Tunes Cartoons), Bruce Timm (Batman Animated), Bill Watterson (Calvin&Hobbes), Franquin (Spirou et Fantasio, Marsupilami). I'd like to list any of the Old Masters here, but while I am very impressed by their work, I'm really more of a modern cartoon guy.
Obtuse: So how does this compare to your main influences in more recent times?
Riess: Interestingly, not much has changed. I'm probably even more of a fan of Jones now than before, same goes for Watterson. The internet opened a whole new world for me as well. I learned so much about so many great artists in the last few years, more than I ever did in my life before. With so much information to choose from, I just like to absorb anything I find and like now.
Obtuse: Have you had the chance to meet any of the artists who've influenced you over your life? If not, is this something that'd you'd hope to do some day?
Riess: I haven't, and I probably would if given the chance, of course, but I don't think I'll ever actively seek out these people. I'm more the kind that admires them from a distance. Oh, to the above, let me add Scott McCloud to my inspirations lately. He has really changed the way I look at comics as an art form and a means of communication with his books
Obtuse: Cool, moving on to your art itself, are you working on any projects currently?
Riess: Ummm, theoretically. I classify my comic as "always in production", but the truth is, I haven't gotten much done with it lately. No other projects beside that, at least not at the moment.
Obtuse: Could you tell me a little bit more about your comic? I saw references to it on your site but I couldn't find that much information about it.
Riess: Right. First thing to know, it's a fantasy story. That's already way out of character for me, I usually complain about the distinct lack of space ships in, well, anything that doesn't have them. It started as a kind of side project, just a silly little story where I wanted to try a humorous and somewhat original take on the genre. I was trying to take some archetypes and clichés that exist in fantasy and other storytelling, and make them somewhat interesting despite their being clichés. The whole thing then evolved into a story that has everything really: action, humour, emotion, love and hate, war, friendship and betrayal. I'm not trying to make a statement with it, or revolutionize the genre, just make something that's enjoyable to write, draw and, ultimately, read.
Obtuse: Good stuff!
Riess: Thanks, I hope I can finally deliver some of it that's not all talk.
Obtuse: This sounds wicked, but where do people view this comic?
Riess: Ah, at the moment, it's not collected in a place. It's a bit scattered all over my deviantart gallery, and some chunks are spread over a thread on the Relic Forums. I hope to collect what I've got and continue from there on the hwcommunity web-space where I now keep my blog (which needs some love too, I realize). I hope to get things sorted by the time 2007 comes around
Obtuse: I’m looking forward to being able to see it collected together, sounds like it could be really first-rate. Is there any art you’ve posted on the forum that you’re particularly proud of?
Riess: Yes, in fact there is. It's the Homeworld Nose Art that I made sometime earlier this year. It was a real improvement over almost all I'd created so far, and I just like the way it came out. I had it turned into a forums avatar already.
Obtuse: Neat! I'll try and find it
[I eventually got Riess to find it because my searching skills are somewhat poor, it can be found here: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=96819 and read the entire thread for awesome progressive goodies]
Riess: That, and some of the caricatures I did for other boardies. Those, not so much because of the artistry involved, but because people really liked them and I felt I could touch them with it.
Obtuse: Yeah, I wanted to talk about the caricatures, it was something I saw happening myself. What prompted that to start off, and what kept it going? It really seemed like a self-contained community event for all involved.
Riess: When I started, it was really just a bunch of illustrations to Lestaki's first Relic Tales and HunterX's script that followed that. The earliest drawings still follow the theme a bit, which is why Moe has a Lock Gun with him. Then people demanded more, and the whole thing became, as you said, self-contained and continued to grow bigger practically on its own. Some of these drawings came into existence out of a joke, or out of the respect I have for many people of the community and staff in particular. Yeah, and I simply had fun with them. And when it stopped being fun, I paused.
Obtuse: Sorry to throw multiple questions at you at once, but: 1) was there one you enjoyed drawing the most? 2) Were there any ones that were hard to do, for any reason? 3) Also, were there any reactions that you particularly remember getting?
Riess: The ones that were most fun, and also the easiest ones, were the ones where I had a clear picture in my mind and just had to let it out. I remember Soulblighter, Ceejayoz, Delphy, and the sidewinder being among those. And I had extra fun revisiting some sketches and colouring them, as with cj and Dyntheos. The one where I most noticed the feedback was Überjumper. I was pretty much *overwhelmed* by the positive responses to that one. I think that's because I approached in on a very personal level, more so than almost all the others.
(http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?p=1542513#post1542513 will take you to the page with Uber’s pic on, and his response is here http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?p=1542904#post1542904)
Riess: Needless to say, I was touched.
Obtuse: Wow, that is a really nice response. That must have stuck with you.
Riess: Yeah, it did. It was really great.
Obtuse: Is cj's current avatar one of yours?
Riess: Yes, it is. Dyn just set all finished and coloured ones for staff one day. Some of them have changed back or moved on since them, some, like cj, have kept them until now.
Obtuse: I can understand why, it's a bitching avatar.
Riess: It was great having a large part of the senior staff wear my art as avatar though. Really good feeling. As for hard ones, the first bunch was hard, but I'll blame that on the fact that it was after 2 in the morning when I started. Ionfish, Tranj, Deepchome and myself were tricky for various reasons, and they're the ones I'm least happy with right now.
Obtuse: Have you any plans ever to revisit them?
Riess: Yes, but I'm kinda waiting for inspiration to strike. I want to have a really good image in my head before I start any new or revisited one.
Obtuse: Okay, (possibly) stepping away from the art for a second, do you have any plans for post-graduation?
Riess: Hmm, not really. That's really far away for me right now, you see. I hope to catch a fun job in a field related to what I'm doing now; that's about as much as I think ahead.
Obtuse: In the future, is there going anywhere or doing anything that would be a dream job?
Riess: I would really love to not work at all. *snickers* Well no, nothing specifically, I just hope to have a job that pays the bills and doesn't drive me insane in the process. Doing something science-related would be a plus.
Obtuse: I noticed you were doing a crazily complex-sounding course at university, could you tell me a bit more about what goes on with that?
Riess: It's easy, really. It's physics applied to the earth. Think seismology, volcanology, and monitoring the Earth's gravitational, magnetic and electric fields, and you're really close. Seismic applications are my favourite, because that's where you get to make small home-made earthquakes to find out how waves travel through the earth. By using explosives, if necessary.
Obtuse: Are there any parallels between your science and your art?
Riess: None that I can think of. I try to keep art as my hobby separated from whatever else I am doing.
Obtuse: Ah, so is doing art your way of just getting away from everything?
Riess: Exactly. I use it as a healthy dose of escapism if needed, and as a kind of relaxation technique sometimes.
Obtuse: Yeah, that can definitely be very necessary. Okay, taking another huge topic leap - because I can - could you tell me about the moderator meet up that happened a while back? How did it come to pass, any significant memories of the event and such.
Riess: I think it came into existence as an idea on IRC. We have one of those "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we had a meetup" discussions every few months. Well, some guys from staff sat together and began hammering out plans. Germany was the location of choice from pretty much the beginning, and Worf offered to house us soon thereafter. There are so many small things I remember about the event. First of all, the food was awesome and the beer was great and plenty. Making the First Official Staff Pizza was fun, and it tasted sooo good. But we spent significant amounts of time just talking about forums stuff, about Homeworld, DoW and random bullshit. We'd get up at 10 on Saturday and have breakfast until 1 pm, just talking all the time. And as it was a staff meeting, there was plenty of secret scheming as well. To summarize, it was great to meet the guys in person, and compare the image I had of them from the forums and IRC to how they actually looked and behaved.
Obtuse: Any interesting differences?
Riess: No, everyone was pretty much in real life as they are online. Only Deathwings is much taller.
Obtuse: Anything else?
Riess: Well, there was the part where Dimension cut his finger That was one of the things that were referenced in the days and possibly weeks after the meet-up. Dimmy managed to cut his finger with a butter knife and got blood on the breakfast table. Delphy managed to spill his first glass of German beer down his pants. Dimmy also broke Worf's car somehow, and we had to get Worf's dad to fix it. That was fun.
Obtuse: Topic-jumping again, leaving the audience wanting for more, what's it actually like moderating the studio? From talking with other mods, how do you feel it differs from places like General Discussion or the various game boards?
Riess: It's vastly different from dealing with the other sections of the forums, from what I've heard. In the DoW and CoH forums, the mods are spending a lot of time helping out newbies and keeping troublemakers in check. The Studio has much less traffic, and needs a different kind of moderator. Someone who can make use of the group dynamics of a forum and channel their creative energies, and preferably someone who can help out if people have specific art or writing-related questions or need critique.
Obtuse: I'm assuming that sometimes tempers do flare, though, being as art is somewhat subjective. Do you get many disagreements?
Riess: Not really. It doesn't happen very often that i have to clean up a Studio thread or slap someone because in there. It's really my peaceful and quiet corner of the forum.
Obtuse: That’s good to hear, sounds quite idyllic.
Riess: Again, it's a matter of traffic, not content. I've seen some very heated debates on larger art forums elsewhere. We're not many, and I think we haven't hit a kind of 'critical mass' of artists in the Studio for things to really take off, in either a positive or negative way.
Obtuse: Well, in that light, what woudl you say to the aspiring artists who might be reading this who haven't yet made the leap into actually posting on the forum?
Riess: There's really only two things I try to tell people (although usually I break into a lengthy rant at this point): 1) Draw. (Paint, write sculpt, whatever it is you do). You can never have enough practise. 2) Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to embrace them and learn from them; never stop learning.
Obtuse: Sounds like good advice, and on that positive note we'll take this to the audience for additional questions if that's alright
Riess: Yes please.
Leftwing: I demand to know what your real sekkrit to that awesome drawing skills are, 12 years of experience is a lie!
Riess: My secret involves a pact with the Greater Evils of the Universe. Sorry, I'm in a bit of an NDA here, but they have something BIG planned!
Da_Fish: What sections of the forum do you frequent the most?
Riess: I'm almost exclusively to be found in the HW dicussion and modding forum, the Studio and the Staff forums. I visit GD, but don't post there much.
Vicius: How do you find time to read and post in RB? How many hours do you spend in the study? What is your opinion about the other artists in this community?
Riess: I find time by putting off less important events, such as uni, work, christmas or 2005. You could say I spend way too much time on the community, but I'd say the day just isn't long enough for all my love for it. Also, I'm less around on the forums than IRC. There are many other artists I like and respect very much, and I have certainly learned many a thing from them. There's just not enough of them, and they don't post enough.
Moe: Riess, what's your role in project Omega and when will you begin execution of said project?
Riess: Project Omega is proceeding as planned. We just have to get rid of those pesky special agents that keep poking their noses in.
Nyyti: Omega? RN is going to die?
Riess: Nyyti, Omega does not destroy, it CREATES!
Lone: So Riess, why haven't you simply started charging ridiculous fees for people who fantasize about having their very own bizarre Riess caricature? You could be a hundredaire.
Riess: Ridiculous fees are planned for when I actually run out of money. Expect that to happen this summer.
Lone: Riess, what Relic games are you most enamoured with aside from Homeworld?
Riess: Lone: I've come to really love Company of Heroes. It's an amazing game, and it showed everyone just what Relic is capable of.
Mnementh: Pie or cake?
Riess: Pie is not native where I live, so I'll go with Strudel.
Lone: Riess, have you said anything witty during the production of this interview or have you responded to every question with class and intellect and an excellent PR team? If not, would you like to say something vaguely amusing to entertain the people that have actually read this interview?
Riess: Lone, I always take my time to mask my lack of wittiness with class and intellect an a PR team. That's why I'm not moderating DoW.
Obtuse: Okay, unless anyone's got any other questions, I think we're done here.
[Slam, bolt, lock. Phew!]
