Bio

My name is Joachim, and I was born in Norway.
I work as an illustrator / animator in in my own company called Artplant. I have worked professionaly with illustration and computer graphics since I was 17 years old. I first started in a company called Funcom. The first game I ever worked on was called "A dinosaur's Tale", but the original title was "We're Back" (funny, the publisher wanted the name to start on A, incase the game dealers placed the games in alphabetical order on the shelf...-I don't think it helped the game to sell more though :))

Anyway, after doing Pocahontas and several other games that never got to become big hits, me and some colleagues and friends started our own company called Dimaga, which was the first time I've ever tried to start a company on my own. After we spent all of the investors money on a game that no one wanted to release because of it's old fashion 2d gameplay (this was in the beginning of 3d games, when it was on the hottest !), we had no other choice than to merge with some other friends of ours that had also breaked out from Funcom, and we made a company called Innerloop Studios (which turned out rather nice though :D ). I've worked in this company all the way up to 2001, when I decided I wanted to give "total independency" another try.
So now I work with 4 other people in our company Artplant, were we are all independent, but working together to find the best payable projects :) . During 2002 we did 2 game projects, all the way from design to final product. These are smaller products than the enormous game projects we've been part of before, one which is a norwegian kids game and the other a horsegame that's been made in 5 languages. Iv'e found out that I love doing these type of projects, they are a lot of job, but enough that a small team of devoted people are able to finish one off within 6-7 months. This means I get to paint and draw a LOT, as well as doing animation and all other things I love, and after 6 months when we are done and bored, I get to start something totally new instead of sitting with the same type of stuff for 2-3 years. Also, I/we have done a MANY big and small illustration jobs for other companies, which is another important reason why wanted to start on my own.
I live in my new house rather central in the capital city of Norway, Oslo.. which is probably the center of this planet, if not the center of the whole universe, ;). Here I have a "peaceful" life with my wife and one kid....no wait, there's two kids now! Wow time moves quickly and I can safely say that days a hectic. Go work, draw draw draw, go home and play with my kids and fix stuff on the house, and maybe get a couple of hours in front of my brand new flatscreen tv :D But, I must admit, even though I thought different a few years back, life is great with kids - even if they drain every bit of energy I have left after a day at work.

...and the story will continue...