Behance Creative Q&A: Dennis Schuster aka DXTR

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Behance
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read

Working under the alias DXTR, Dennis Schuster is a German artist and illustrator living and working in Berlin. He’s worked with clients such as Wacom, ESPN Magazine, and GQ.

When did you first find the creative spark? When you were young? Maybe later?

I was always drawing since my childhood but later on, my friends in school introduced me to this magical thing called graffiti. I started to paint walls when I was sixteen years old in 1999, and things became more and more serious over the years. I moved to Dusseldorf and studied Communications and Design at the University of applied science, and while studying, I started to build my freelance business.

Who or what nurtured that initial spark? Did you have any early mentors?

That initial spark was definitely these early years of doing graffiti. This lead to my fascination about drawing again and pushed me into the direction of doing character design. Later on, in University, I met my good friend, Max Fiedler, aka Mexer, who was one of my lecturers and the first person I got to know that could live off this kind of work. This was an “Ok, let’s go” moment for me.

As you’ve developed your style over the years, who are some of your influences?

I’m part of an art collective called “The Weird, “ and we are ten artists, illustrators and muralists out of Germany and Austria. All these people are ultra talented and always push me to work harder, develop and try out new things. So these people are my influences.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/53324283/DXTR-Various-Illustrations-2016

When you start a new project, what’s your process? How do you gather your ideas, how do you execute them, etc.?

It differs if it’s client work or my stuff I’m working on. Most of the time the client has an idea what they want to have executed in my style. Usually, I’m starting with a lot of research to get in the mood for the theme the client wants me to work on. Some mood board helps as well. Then I move to pen and paper or directly to digital sketches which I share with the client. After approval, I finalize my digital work in Illustrator to get the style I want to achieve. On my canvases, I’m working on one theme for a while now, so the research is a bit different. The mural work is always very spontaneous, of course, everything is planned before but so many unexpected things can happen, like the weather, supplies. I have to improvise a lot while doing these big sized paintings.

What is your normal workspace like? Do you have any favorite places to go to do certain types of work?

That depends on the project. When I’m working on canvas or doing illustration, I prefer to work in my studio in Berlin. I’m sharing it with two good friends, so it’s always nice to be there, chat about stuff and help each other. But what I love most is being outside while working on my murals. It leads to so many travels that I have to work on illustration work while on the road.

What have you been working on recently?

The last months have been seriously crazy. After coming back from LA end of April where I painted some murals with my friend Nychos, I headed to OFFF Barcelona for Adobe, and we celebrated 30 years of Adobe Illustrator with a little Creative Jam, where every artist created a poster about the program. After this, I’ve had to work one month on my solo exhibition at the Pictoplasma Conference here in Berlin. Pictoplasma is all about character design, so it was an honor to have a talk and solo exhibition at this conference.

Right after, AdobeLive invited me to come to Paris, and we did an excellent 6-hour live session over the course of three days where I created some illustrations and talked about my process (can be found on youtube or Adobe live.com, German only). While typing this, I just returned from Hamburg where I painted a huge 50m x 10m mural in collaboration with the incredibly talented Mexican artist, and all around great guy, Smithe. We also had the chance to paint an original piece of the Berlin Wall, as a statement of freedom during the G20 gathering in Hamburg: Paint walls instead of building them.

What’s something the art/design world is too focused on or What is the art/design world not focused enough on?

The art/design world may be a bit too focused on celebrating themselves instead of being aware of and trying to help social issues. I include myself of course; we should use our ability to inspire people for something good more often.
I think there should be more focus on sustainability and social awareness.

What’s a skill you used to use all the time but don’t use anymore? Or, conversely, what’s a skill you never thought you’d need to use but can’t work without?

I think I have a good ability to work with other people and collaborate, if you have a look through my portfolio over the years you’ll find plenty of collaborations. Nowadays I don’t have that much time anymore and work more on my own, but I don’t mind the right collaboration like the wall I painted in Hamburg recently.

Conversely, I’d never thought I’d need to speak and talk and write that much about myself, I always just wanted to draw!

Where does Behance fit in your creative life? Has anything noteworthy come from you being a member?

Behance is crazy; I have met so many great clients and creative people on there, thanks for that. I don’t even have a website; I’m just using social media to put my portfolio out there, so Behance is a perfect fit and leads to a lot of fun projects, even to clients I worked with for several years.

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