"Mom, I´m gonna draw monsters!"

At the age of four I grabbed a pencil and never dropped it since. This got me in a lot of trouble because I started to illustrate all my exercise books in elementary school for "better understanding". In 1988, while visiting the local art school, someone was asked to design the cover artwork for a German Thrash band called Despair. That someone wasn´t me. But I was ambient and jealous enough to try to get a foot in that door as well. After a few weeks I got a chance to meet the owner of the new German label Century Media Records who happened to be Despair´s frontman as well. The first job he offered me was the 7" illustration for a band called Liar. He seemed to like it and gave me the opportunity to work on my first real album cover for a Swiss Thrash Metal band named Poltergeist.

Out goes Thrash, in comes Death Metal - and the age of gore. In 1990 I met the Morgoth guys down in the dungeons of my parents´ house. What they wanted for their artwork became a popular standard in the early nineties: Gore, guts, Giger, evil and airbrush. I had never worked with airbrush technics before - but now i had to. My first try ended up being the "Resurrection Absurd" illustration. Followed by lots of LP/CD cover artworks for Century Media, my work was also used by other companies like Massacre Records, NSM, Rock Hard Magazine, Airbrush Total, EMP, SPV, People Like You Records, Nuclear Blast, etc. After stepping into computer graphics and working as a tattoo artist for ten years, I still love what I do and will continue to do so.

On this website you can see some of my published work in the "Coverart" and "Various" sections. Find several concept- and detail sketches for various bands or just private drawings in the "Sketchbook" area. Unpublished illustrations will be added to the "New" section as soon as they are available.

If you are interested in purchasing a copyright for any of these unpublished artworks or if you just need more information, feel free to send a mail to: info@axel-illustrator.de.

I also offer custom made designs, following your individual concepts.

Prices are negotiable, depending on the amount of work and the kind of medium being used. Available technics are drawing, acrylic painting, airbrush, mixed mediums, digital painting and composing to layout and packaging designs. If you do or don't like what you see, please sign my guestbook.