First off I just want to thank you for taking this opportunity to share your
extensive knowledge of the pixel industry to all of us. You are one of the
most skilled in the industry and we wish you many years of success
to come.

No problem! And, Thanks a lot Mate!
Regarding the future, I got some great things coming. As you already know i
just finished 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' last november for
almost every platform. Just started on another huge project featuring again
a 'well known' character which has to be finished half thru 2004. There's
some original work in the pipeline as well (which may involve some
pixelpushin' too), but can't say much about that yet. ;)

You have been fooling around with pixels ever since you were 15. That is a
common age for many of us pixel artists to start 'pixel pushing',
experimenting with our talents. Did you find pixeling to have a steep
learning curve when you first started, or did it just come naturally to you.

Well, Dunno if it's a common age but fooling around is exactly the right
description looking back at it. :) For me, It was just a matter of interest
and being lucky to have been born in the right era. At age 14 i started to
look beyond playing videogames (not that i was bored of it) and started
questioning who those people were that made those incredible games which i
loved so much and of course how they did it. Bought lot's of gaming
magazines like (Zapp64, Computer & Videogames) and that was the only source
i got. No World Wide Web back then. The Netherlands where
i come from wasn't and still isn't really the home of videogame pioneers. It
all happended overseas.

When i finally started pixeling (my friend ask me to do an image for
somebody) i just didn't know where to start and where it would eventually
lead to. ;-) I just grabbed the first tool that was available to me and
started pixeling. That's really how it went. Think it was a tool or some
kind of external operating system on the C64 called 'Geos' or something. I
started pixeling on 'high-res' 2 color mode (Yeah, high-res) cos that was
the only gfx mode available. The computer hardware back then wasn't really
capable of showing more than 16 color simultaneous on screen. These
restrictions as you may call it almost forced me to make something decent
out of only a few colors.

My first pixel efforts were a few drawings copied from another genius dutch
artist ' M C Escher'. ;-)) I was somehow heavily inspired by his work back
then. After a few of those monochrome drawings i was ready for a bit more
color and started using 'Kaola Painter', a small paint tool i found on one
of my tapes. :) Yes, Back then i had to store everything on tape! :P I
couldn't afford a floppy-discdrive yet. I also didn't had a mouse back then.
It was all a matter of hardcore pixeling by pushing my joystick around (Yes,
a joystick), was fun tho! ;)

Getting back to the subject, Think it just came natural to me yes, i just
want it to look good and i always try to maintain a very high quality
expectation for myself.

You have a few pieces of handdrawn art on your personal site (which by the
way, are gorgeous). Do you have a large interest in traditional medium as
well? Would you say that traditional medium is essential to becoming a good
pixel artist? In what ways do you think they correlate with each other? In
otherwords, would you say your experience as a traditional artist
developed/influenced your style as a pixel artist?

Some people say that all of my handdrawn art looks similar to my digitally
pixeled/painted stuff in terms of typical forms and structures i use. Really
like to draw on paper with pencil but prefer to use digital canvas if the
job requires more color.
All the things i draw have most of the time something to do with my job. I
rarely start drawing just for myself.

I think when you've got the eye for quality and the constant urge to outdo
yourself it doesn't matter if you do it' traditionally' or' 'digitally'. In
the end it just another tool you use. A pencil, Dpaint, Photoshop or Maya it
really doesn't matter. I see myself more as a videogame graphic artist than
anything else. Gave me the most satisfying result till now.

I personally was born a generation too late. I would love to have a chance
to develop for systems such as the Amiga/Commodore64. How would you explain
your level of involvement in developing art for these systems as a hobby? Do
you feel that pixel art was more of an artform back then as compared to
todays times?

Think pixeling is now more seen as an artform than back then by some people.
Just the fact alone that it's becoming very rare nowadays that's you run
into some decent hand pixeled graphics. :-P I never really joined a
demogroup or anything like that, i just drew gfx when people asked me too.
Then one day my friend introduced me to demo programmer/cracker Erwin
Kloibhofer who was just visiting Holland. We sat together and soon decided
to make a game, you probably know the rest. Shame that it had to end after
Lomax though...

Many games today, such as Capcom Vs SnK, legend of zelda, Final Fantasy
6(j), Seiken Densetsu 3, and other similar games, provide todays budding
pixel artists with a wealth of inspiration. What inspirations did you have
back when you first started doing pixel art? What games/artists influenced
you the most? Were you impressed or even involved with the
'demo scene' that was going on back then? WHat do you think of the newer
'classics'?

When i just started (The Ghostbattle era) i was inspired by playing
videogames in the arcades or at my local cafeteria and checking out
everything that had elements of horror in it. (Still dig those Italian
grizzly movies, it's all nostalgia). ;) When i moved on and got more
professional and met more people in the biz i got slowly introduced to work
from other artists like 'Rodney Matthews'. I still remember seeing his work
for the first time. It was like a revelation to me and for many other
videogame artist as wel, i think. When i needed some spiration during
development of Lionheart i just gazed at his art for a few minutes and
that's all i needed. May also be a little obvious when you look close at
some of the Lionheart gfx. There were other artists who inspired me as well
but Rodney Matthews really amazed me, especially with his older work. From
that point i kinda started developing my 'own' style. Or at least, i tried.

Speaking of Japanese games. I really love the japanese approach of
gamedevelopment. (That's why i also got a huge jap and retro games
collection) They're the only people in videogame development who still have
the guts to try and come up with something original. Just the fact that
they're still developing traditional shoot'em ups nowadays in Japan boasting
the best 2D gfx you've ever laid your eyes on! Isn't that great! You gotta
love and support that!

I just realize by writing this that a lot of my inspiration also comes from
the far east. I'm affraid US en European videogame developers can only try
and follow them and rely on their big licences instead of originality. (I
start preachin' now, stop me!) I really can go on about this forever,
believe me. I'm really glad that i work for a developer who still believes
in originality and creativity.

You got your first major break when you took a year to develop "Lionheart"
for the Amiga. The game features stunning pixel art that rivals modern hand
pixeled games. What frustrations and triumphs did you experience while
developing this game? DId the year to fly by? did it drag along? were you
inspired by your own progress?

I remember being very confident about what i was going to create and Erwin
(programmer of Lionheart) also, tho we never made anything like it before.
May sound funny but it just was like that. Really enjoyed working with Eric
Simon 'lead of software development and gfx artist' back then at Thalion
Software who really made me feel special and professional. Hey Eric, What
about Lionheart 2? ;-) Had a great time in Germany especially those times we
all went to the cinema or the arcades to play the newest games. Checking out
new japanese PC-Engine, Snes and Megadrive games together at home. That was
kinda inspiring and educational too.

I remember that one day almost near the end of Lionheart i was very
frustrated reading everywhere in magazines that Lionheart was 'Eric Simon's'
game and none of our names were being mentioned. Eric couldn't help it of course but back then i was kinda not happy about it. It was more than made up in the reviews that followed.

We as a whole team (Me, Erwin kloibhofer, Eric Simon and Michael Bittner)
were so driven that it was almost magical. Thalion produced several other high quality games that same year.