I spent the last evenings doing some little watercolor paintings.

Here is a little monster I made, or rather the head of it.

I've been making those little fellows since quite some time now. My little brother calls them "bears with horns" which I think is quite fitting ^^ As you can see in the image above, there are some white spots. During some experimenting I noticed that the watercolor don't stick on white permanent marker so much. So I used this here for some interesting effect.

Also here are some more watercolor "doodles" I did. Just fooling a bit around with colors and style to learn watercolors.

I love the texture you get by using such traditional media. Plus it's a very relaxing process to just sit down and paint - really can forget about time when doing it ^^
Maybe I'll use this technique in the future to create some little illustrations for the blog :)

In "Welcome to my Room" you explore a little hand-drawn appartment. Each time you leave the door you come back to a different version of the room, representing a different aspect of the person living here.

I drew the graphics using felt-pens and a simple ballpoint-pen, which was a super relaxing experience! You can see a video here of my making the graphics:

So far the game got some really interesting, meaningful comments from the people who played it. Some of them even made my eyes a bit wet :'D I hadn't this effect this strong for any other game I made before, so I'm really happy about this little experiment.

You can give it yourself a try here: Click here to play.
Let me know what you think c:

​A winter-cherry (Physalis alkekengi) on a frosty Winter morning.
I collected this fruit back in Summer in my grandmas garden and put it during Autumn in my mossgarden for the little snails to eat the tasty orange outside.
It unveiled the beautiful fine structures I love so much about this fruit.

I just loved how this fern looks in the evening sun .. as it was glowing from within.

After a cold night, the forest was transformed.
Glittering and glimmering, this mushroom bathed in the sun.

Here is a little teaser for a game I'm making!

In "Root Dreams" you explore a tiny, remote island filled with a wonderful forest and crazy characters.

I don't do this project on my own! The character models are by Cestmir, some static models are by Keppu and the dialogue of rabbit and the old lady are by Paul Wendtland ;)
​I create the world, the textures and also some models.

​This has been on ice since I started studying game development and at the same time losing contact to Paul. Recently it came into my focus again. I really love the world, you could say there is a lot of me in there. Right now I'm trying to find someone to help me with the story. If this fails, I guess I'll need to level up my own writing skills ^^ Anyways, expect some pictures and videos of this in the next months!

P.S.: If you want to see how I'm making this, than take a look at this little behind-the-scenes timelapse I created: ​http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JLmbwhJPew

I found this ant on top of the moss.
It looked a bit like she was climbing a tiny tree.

2016 to me was a hard, but also a great year! I hope you all had a good start into 2017 :)

Here are some of my favorite articles and photos I created the last year.

Take a cup of tea - or other beverage of choice - and browse trough some posts :)

That's it! I wish you much health and joy as a reader. May your days be filled with little wonders.
Best wishes, -Rick

​The little bug found a nice place to start his adventure.
I wonder what he experienced on his way.

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It's filled with art, adventures and tips :)

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This group of mushrooms was growing on the side of a huge, old tree.
It looks a bit like a mushroom forest on it's own.

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At the moment I'm designing my own version of the character of Pinocchio.

As some of you may know, I'm currently studying Digital Games at the Cologne Game Lab. One of our courses allows us to create a concept for a character or environment, while getting feedback by our peers and professor.
I chose the theme of "Pinocchio", as I'm thinking of maybe going into making books or apps for children later. And I also want to learn more about making my own characters.
The idea I'm currently exploring for "Pinocchio" is making him look like one of the chestnut figures children make.
So one of the first things I did next to collecting inspiration and doing studies was creating some chestnut figures myself.

I think having a chestnut figure as character in a story could give children some interesting connection and it also fits with the original story, which is about a piece of pine coming to life. For my character, it is a pinecone!
Right now I'm looking at ways to make the chestnut figure look more like a 4 year old boy, so the children viewing the final image, can better identify with it. Here is one of my quick sketches I did in the train.

I'm also thinking of giving the character a little piece of red yarn to wear as scarf, to make it more easily recognizable.
So far this project has been really fun, I hope to show my drawings to some children at some point and see what they think of it :)

I found those two on a rotting tree. I'm not sure what they were fighting about, but it looked absolutely fascinating in the light of the setting sun. Their tiny bodies started to glow as the sun did shine on them.

Art Experiments - get inspired by my experimental work
Click here to discover more of this series.

Today I brought my tiny planet to life. While it has been a desert planet before, there are now huge, beautiful plants growing here. They look a bit like the seaweed you would find on earth.

If you want, you can download a wallpaper of this tiny space home here: link

Dreamscapes - creating imaginary worlds
Click here to discover more of this series.

I spent the afternoon in the forest, creating 3D models for our game. Despite the low temperatures, things are still looking very green, especially with large parts being covered by moss, which is still doing photosynthesis.

With all the dew-drops, the moss looked a tiny fairytale forest to me.
This is the final image in my "Bye bye 2016" series.
Have a safe start in the new year everybody! c:

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Two striped bugs having a sexy time in the cozy top of a wild carrot.

The forest surrounding this pavilion is a place of calm and wonder to me.

Just a little, hungry snail. I just love how they look like!

I found those strange mushrooms in a new little forest I discovered. They looked like trees, that were skew from the wind.

I found those eye-like structures at the beginning of the year in a nearby forest, on a couple of different spots. My guess is that a bird caught a frog or it's eggs and dropped some of them while it was flying. I love how this looks like a couple of tiny eyes! Both haunting and fascinating.

So I have this really nice chance of hosting a "game jam" on the biggest site for such stuff: Ludum Dare. Basically it all started with me announcing the theme: "Childhood Memories" and then people could decided if they wanted to participate.
I chose the theme, because I hope it will encourage people to create personal, meaningful entries.

While the contest is still running, there are already some really cool games I want to show you <3

In this game by Sandro Figo you collect wood to build a little crappy treehouse (which is also the name of the game). The author says that he used to build a lot of treehouses together with his friends, which I think is really sweet :3
You can download it here: http://ift.tt/2901lRJ

Ken Murdock is recreating his childhood home in virtual reality - he hasn't been there for ~30 years! The game is still in development and he seems to do some really funny stuff with it :D
You can follow Kens progress on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Giragast

The last game I want to show you for now is by David 'Cookie'. In his childhood, he used to play a game during car trips where he would catch other cars and put them in his "virtual garage".
While he says that he is "no graphist", I think the game looks pretty good so far!
David can be found on Twitter, too: https://twitter.com/messire_Cookie

I hope you enjoyed this little compilation! I think childhood memories are really interesting to base a game on, there are so much sweet memories to be discovered! :)
I'm curious what memories the other participants will turn into games :)

We have quite some swampy areas in the nearby forest.
I love how their dark waters reflect perfectly the world around them. It feels a bit like a portal to another world.

I first learned about this little brown tree seeds, when I went hiking with my family. On Autumn-hikes, my father used to stop with us at beech trees, showing us the little beech-nuts laying around.

Nobody really seems to know that you can eat this little fruit. The seeds are very tasty, taste a bit sweet, a bit nutty, as the English name suggests.
The first thing you want to do when looking for this little fruit is searching for an beech-tree.
They look like this:

Beech trees produce their seeds when they are about 40-80 years old, so look for some bigger trees (they don't need to be huge, though).
You'll find the fruits laying around at the bottom of the tree, during Autumn time.
​Here is what they look like:

As you can see in the image, once you found the little seeds, you want to remove their shell, much as with sunflower seeds. You can instantly try some of them in their raw form. They will taste sweet and nutty.
But don't eat too much raw seeds at once, since they contain the toxin "fagin". It will give you stomach aches if you really eat a lot. However, they are rather healthy, since they contain a lot of minerals, iron and zinc.

The toxin goes away once you roast them for a few minutes in the pan. And this also really brings out their flavor! So collect some beech-nuts and take them home with you. Once you roasted them you can use them as snacks or for a nice Autumnal salad.

What other food out of the forest do you know of (berries, mushrooms, nuts, etc.)?
​Leave your answer in the comments :)

This type of moss is called Sphagnum moss - it's what most of the peat part of moors is made of.
Due their special structure they can soak up to 30x their bodyweight in water. Moors are basically big sponges of dead Sphagnum moss that soak up the rain.
As such a moor get's older and more moss dies, it grows higher and higher in the air - new moss grows on top of the old dead plant layers.
​The little moss plants are also the reason why moors are acidic and low in nutrients, as they evolve hydrogen ions in their surroundings. Only a few, specialized species can life in such a moor. Such as the beautiful morning dew.

I'm gonna leave you with a picture of a beautiful moor I visited with my family.

This one is "naturalized" and is still on ground water level.  Moors got pretty rare in Europe, because people used the peat they consist of. At this place only a small part of the former moor did remain. Conservationists​ made an effort to create a reservation that tries to come as close to how the moor was before the impact of humans.

Moors are a mystical place. Do you know any good fairy tales or stories that play in moors?

​Click here to leave a comment

Sources for this article: The book "Farne, Moose & Flechten" by Maibach/Kainz
(can recommend buying it if you're looking for a good German book to identify moss, lichen and fern)
I also once interviewed moss explorer Annette, whose favorite moss is the colorful Sphagnum moss! 
Also, while I love moss, I'm not an expert, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

I found this awesome little refuge in a nearby forest.
It now has hold up for quite some time and it's always nice and cozy inside.

I'm thinking about starting a little series about the things I collected in the forest as child.
Pinecones are certainly such a "treasure". Interesting to look at and fun to play with. And they smell really nice :)
Do you have any "forest treasures" you collected as child?

I found this little beauty in a nearby forest.
My sister says it's a moor frog - frogs are her very favorite animals :)

Forest Friday - a magical discovery in the woods
Click here to discover more of this series.

I visited the mossgarden at my grandmas place again. In the hideouts I made, I found quite some woodlouse families, earthworms and also this little fella. Life is bubbling again!

The hideouts are a safe spot for little animals, like snails or woodlouses, who need a wet, shady spot during the dry, warm day. I placed the rocks in a way that there is a little hollow part underneath them. Big enough for snails to get under them, but small enough to protect them from predators.

They are also great observation spots, to see more of the tiny life in the garden.
A snail even laid some little eggs under the rocks.

If you're interested in building your own little animal home, I wrote a step-by-step tutorial some time ago:
How to build a home for tiny animals

​Another image of my mini-Physalis series.
Sometimes it's better to let go. Decay can be beautiful.

I found this pinecone in the forest. It's absolutely fascinating how out of it's decaying body grew tiny mushrooms, it makes the circling processes happening in nature nicely visible and tangible.
In a way, it shows how out of death grows new life.

Today was a really, nice warm day, that made me believe Spring is coming.

I didn't realize I missed all the smells and sounds of nature so much. Birds in the trees, the smell of wet dirt .. it was a very calming day today :)


The perfect weather to explore the little worlds on the forest floor.

I tried out putting some "macro rings" on my camera, so I can get a better magnification with my lens/camera. It's really fascinating to look at things this close, gives you a whole another perspective.

This for example is a species of moss, that is a few centimeters tall. As you can see it looks kind of dark and wrinkled. That's because it was a bit dried out - this species than folds together it leaves, to lose less water. And once it gets wet again, the leaves expand again. Really fascinating!

Here is a tiny bug on top of such a moss plant.

This little fellow decided to sit down on my camera as I was photographing and stayed there a couple of minutes. I wondered what made him do that - maybe the black camera was a nice, warm surface or maybe he just was curious.
When I was done photographing and wanted to leave again, he even got on my backpack, as if he wanted to come with me. Felt like having a little bug buddy ^^
​But I thought the forest was nicer than my garden, so I put him back in the moss. 

As I really enjoyed this warm, first day of Spring, I wanted to make a little terrarium to remind me of this moment.

In the terrarium you can see some of the little moss "trees" the bug climbed on. And I also put in there a little snail shell I had collected earlier.
If you want to make your own terrarium, I made a little video about it some time ago: Tiny World DIY.
It's really easy to make and if the glass jar you put it in, you don't need to add any water. It's like a little ecosystem on it's own, with it's own air and water cycles.

Has Spring come at your place yet too? How did you spend the first warm days in nature?

This is the first portrait I've done that I really like! As I was photographing my sister, she noticed an animal in the tree, which led to a very beautiful look of joy on her face.

This little blackbird was hopping around the garden, eating all the tasty apples. We nicknamed him "Schwarzi", which could be translated to "little black one".

​I really like all those wonderful structures this fruit has!
It almost looks like a stained glass window.

The best of my ideas usually come to me when I walk.

I love to walk trough unknown territory. Not is there only the excitement of adventure, my experiences while walking also add a little something to my thoughts.
A good friend of mine once introduced me to the idea that if you body wanders, so does your mind. So in a way, walking can be great to move your thought processes forward.

A while after my friend introduced me to this idea, I read a comprehensive article on why we walk by Adam Gopnik.
In his text, the author looks at walking from different historical perspectives. I found especially the European culture interesting, where walking is often seen as individual activity to help you clear your head and let your mind wander. Gopnik compares it to the Eastern tradition of meditation.
This plays hand in hand with using walking to escape your daily life and social roles, as
he later mentions in his essay.


Personally, I can find myself mostly using individual walking as a way of meditative
thinking. It becomes especially interesting when I want to come up with creative ideas
and solutions. As I walk I constantly get new sensory input, giving me unexpected,
randomized influences on my thoughts and helping me to look at a problem from
different, fresh perspectives.
I'm also using the New York way of city-walking, to widen my perception of a certain
place. So walking to me, is a way of having new experiences and thoughts, to widen
my perspective, as well as an opportunity to reflect on my daily life.

What is walking to you?

As the tiny snail crawled into the walnut shell, it looked like it was sailing the seas with a tiny boat.
​I shot this back in Summer in my moss-garden. Now all the snails are dug in, to rest for the Winter.

For my current game project I can work in the forest.
Best job in the world right now! :3

I prepared a little photo series for the end of the year! :) Starting the day after Christmas.

It's a way for me to show you some more of the stuff I photographed this year ^^
Enjoy your holidays everybody! c:

Hello! It's nice you found your way to my site!
I hope you enjoy my nature photography and blog posts.
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​This is a shot of my biggest moss terrarium, inside an old chemist's glass jar.

The moss plants really seem to like the warm temperatures and humid air.
Most doubled their size to when I collected them.

Terrariums are really fascinating! They are like a little ecosystem on their own - like this tiny moss forest c:

I got lost with my bike and ended up somewhere beautiful.

My bike trip started out of frustration. Stuck in my daily routine, too scared or comfortable to meet new people, I was slowly losing interest in the things that mattered to me.
I wanted to get away, to experience new things, so I grabbed my bike and got away.

As I was driving I ensured to always take the paths I never had taken before, until I got lost.
It was wonderful. The thrill of the adventure, the beauty on the way. I ended up driving to a little forest that was glowing in the light of the setting sun.

Here I did something scary, challenging myself to try out new tricks with my mountainbike, driving trough little trenches, people once carved in the forest floor.
I fell. It hurt a bit, but it was good. I was full of mud, but happy about it.
I kept driving up until I saw the beautiful sun coming trough the leaves.

Sunsets are beautiful. Everything glows, the people are gone, the animals come out. I love this time of the day and love to take photos then.

So what did I drive away from? I have many things to be happy for: a caring family I'm close to, a beautiful place to stay as I study the course of my dreams. Plenty of free time and money without having to work for it too much.
But I don't know how to interact with people. I get scared, my brain shuts down and I become a numb mess. They say a good article must hurt, you must doubt yourself for wanting to put it into the world. This is something I actually did not even really talk with my family about.
With no one really.
So what should you do now, reading this? Don't pity me.
Let me hear your thoughts, your experiences if you want.
I'm fine, but it sometimes is also good to talk about the things that hurt.

Adventure Time - come on adventures with me
Click here to discover more of this series

I love when beech trees shows their gnarly roots.
The way they form caves and passages has something magical.

Forest Friday - a magical discovery in the woods
Click here to discover more of this series.

Here is my deviantART photography improvement meme From 2012 to now. Enjoy! :)