⁂ Meet the Artist

Names

Alex, Lutz

Hatchday

8/23/1993

Brain stuff

Biromantic Aegosexual / Autistic

Gender

Butch/masc Androgyne

Beliefs

Liberal Atheist

Exists in

Illinois, USA. Sometimes in orbit.

Likes

Being silly, birds, glow in the dark objects, hiking, morbid and gross things, neon colors against black, outer space, poop jokes, taking care of my friends, and the night

Dislikes

Anti-intellectualism, censorship, chewing noises, right wing politics, screaming children, strong smells, and whinging

Pictured Above:

That's Yimblédo, my fursona. They're an alien mini-gryphon.

How did I get here?

Early childhood

I was born in 1993. I wasted too much time resting in the womb when I could have bought a house for $2.17.

I grew up in a Rust Belt town that’s infamous for smelling like burnt Cheez-Its. I spent my childhood searching for an escape and I found it in the world of stories and art. It has always been my refuge from pain, an uncharted universe for me to explore, a wellspring of strangeness, and a tool to examine uncomfortable realities. I’ve been drawing and writing stories since I was 4 years old. My head was overflowing with weird, imaginative ideas that I was compelled to get onto paper. I was an only child with undiagnosed autism, and making friends was difficult for me, so the world of fantasy was where I found refuge. I imagined elaborate animated scenarios of my characters going on adventures. I called them “my movies” and they were the driving force behind all of my creative work. They still are to this very day! Everything I have ever drawn and written has been an effort to make my inner world as rich and lifelike to others as it is to me.

I loved the painted worlds of picture books and I enjoyed making my own. I’d write 5 to 10 page story in Microsoft Word 97, leave room under the paragraphs for the pictures, print them out, illustrate them with crayons and colored pencils, and staple them together. I was so proud to make my own little books! Unfortunately, I don’t have many of them anymore. One of my Holy Grail of Holy Shit items was a crossover fanfic I wrote when I was 9. It was about SpongeBob falling into a time warp—which I called a “spinny time thingy”— and meeting my character Travis the Dragon. They spent the entire story going to the movies and eating at a Chinese buffet. I have been digging around at my parents’ house for this story for 20 years, because I KNOW I didn’t get rid of it, but no dice. Someday I will find it…mark my worms.

Even as a kid, I was always pushing myself to improve my craft so that I was able to communicate my ideas with the same level of vividness they had in my mind. I was fascinated with comparing my new work to my old work to see how I’d “evolved”, as I liked to call it. When my dad had band or orchestra practice, he would bring me along. The facility would always either be a church basement or a school. I’d always take my pink SpaceMaker box full of crayons and pencils, and I’d entertain myself by sitting in a back room and drawing. The area usually had extra printer paper lying around, but if it didn’t, I always kept a notebook to draw in just in case.

When I was a kid at home, rarely sat at a table or desk to draw. I often was lying on the floor on my stomach, kicking my little feet, surrounded by pieces of paper and art supplies. I used a large hardcover book as a clipboard. When I was 11, my dad built me a desk out of plywood and put it in my room. I used it constantly until I moved out. When I was about 14, I realized that it was ergonomically necessary to draw on a slant. I made an angled surface by duct taping a cheap $5 lap desk from Target onto the bottom legs of a locker shelf, which I’d duct taped together at a 60 degree angle. I duct taped this whole janky contraption to my desk and used it until I moved out.

Tween years

When I was 11, I became more serious about practicing art when I bought How to Draw Manga books from my school’s Scholastic book fair. The books presented foundational art concepts that were easy to understand for a kid like me. I learned about using articulated stick figures to construct the human body, drawing using simple perspective, and how to shade. One of the most important concepts was how to build a drawing with a sketch, pressing lightly on the pencil, then inking it using fineliners. Before this Eureka moment, I had been pressing the pencil so hard on the paper that I gouged lines into it and couldn’t figure out how to erase them properly. I drew mostly anthropomorphic dragons and birds in my interpretation of the manga style. The characters all had huge, glossy eyes and flowing hair. One of my favorite subjects were bird magical girls. They held mystical wands and staffs, floated through the air, and wore short, flowing dresses in a rainbow of colors. I also enjoyed drawing superheroes who wore elaborate costumes.

I found furry art at this stage of my life. I had been drawing anthropomorphic animal people since I was barely able to hold a pencil, but had no idea that the art style had a name, or that so many other people were doing the same thing as me. I was fascinated! I didn’t make any accounts because I was too scared to post online—rightfully so—but I spent hours a day trawling through people’s art galleries on Deviantart and Yerf. I studied their techniques and picked up on style. The furry art world is where I learned about real art supplies. I was no longer content with using Crayolas and printer paper for my creations. I asked my mom to pick up Prismacolor pencils, Sakura microns, and sketchbook paper, and I used them for everything I drew. I liked the way people talked about their own work in the artist comments, so whenever I finished a drawing, I wrote down creator’s commentary in a Word document. It helped me think about my own work with a critical eye while still enjoying the process.

Around this time, I discovered electronica, specifically trance music, while scrolling through the CD sampling station at Circuit City. I was enthralled. I had no idea music could have such an intense, otherworldly sound, like the soundtrack of a dream. I saved up my allowance money and purchased various artist trance compilation CDs from Sam Goody’s all the time, never knowing what I was getting but always expecting something mind blowing. I discovered artists like Armin Van Buuren, Carl Cox, Kraftwelt, and Juno Reactor through these albums. Trance music fueled my artistic journey by giving me a soundscape for my inner world. The strange, trippy music brought out strong mental imagery in a way I’d never experienced before. It put my brain in a surreal fantasy land whenever I listened to it and it began reflecting in my art, albeit in a way that was limited by my unpracticed preteen hands. Despite being hampered by a lack of skill, my urge to recreate the atmosphere of music through visual art changed my life. From then on, music and art would be permanently intertwined for me, with music being a primary driving force behind my creativity. I am always trying to replicate the atmosphere I perceive in many genres of music.

Teen years: Part 1

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Teen years: Part 2

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College years

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Young adult years

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Young adult years: Part 2

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Now

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Favorite Things

Animals

Big Headed Mole Rats, Bully breed dogs, Frogfish, Japanese Emperor Caterpillars, Jumping Spiders, Koi Fish, Northern Cardinals, Opabinias, Red Milkweed Beetles, Red Winged Blackbirds, Tufted Titmice, Weevils, White breasted nuthatches

Birds

American goldfinch, Barred owl, Downy woodpecker, Eastern towhee, Golden crowned kinglet, Gray catbird, House wren, Indigo bunting, Mourning dove, Northern cardinal, Northern flicker, Red bellied woodpecker, Red headed woodpecker, Red winged blackbird, Rose breasted grosbeak, Tufted titmouse, White breasted nuthatch, Willow ptarmigan, Yellow warbler

Flavors

Banana nut, BBQ, Caramel, Cherry, Cinnamon, Cola, Cotton candy, Green apple, Honey butter, Key lime, Lemon, Nacho cheese, Peach, Peppermint, Pumpkin, Root beer, Soy sauce, Taco, Vanilla

Food

Beef Bibimbap, Beef Lo Mein, Beef Pho, Chicken Tikka Masala, Coke Zero, Cheeseburgers, Chicago-style pizza, Chicken and Dumplings, Chicken Noodle Soup, Delmonico Steak, Fried Chicken, Grilled cheese sandwiches with Tomato Soup, Ice water, Jjajangmyeon, Lemon cake, Mint chocolate ice-cream, Mocktail Pina Coladas, Naan, Pasta in Alfredo sauce, Peppermint ice-cream, Pepperoni Pizza, Saag Paneer, Sesame Chicken with broccoli, Southern Barbecue, Thai Curry, Unsweetened ice tea, White Radish Kimchi

Interests

420, Astronomy, birds, criminology, cults, extreme cinema, film, general oddities, history, horror, liminal spaces, natural disasters, psychological and body horror, psychology, psychedelia, surrealism, tattoos, the human body, so-bad-it’s good media, vintage ephemera

Little Things

Being in my bed under some cool lights, Being with my husband, Coffee table art-books, Cuddling my dog, Curating photos of silly things, Getting high and watching movies, Learning new bird songs, Listening to the frogs at the pond, Listening to some 80s' death metal, My friends, Reading my books, Smoking a joint under a full moon, Smoking a joint while I watch the rain, Stargazing, Staring at my lava lamps, The glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, Those stressballs full of gel, This giant tangle I own, Tomato soup and grilled cheeses

Movies

120 Days of Sodom, A Clockwork Orange, Cats Don’t Dance, Coraline, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Human Centipede 2, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Meet the Feebles, Misery, Robocop (1987), Soylent Green, Suspiria (1977), Tetsuo the Iron Man, The Brave Little Toaster, The Fly (1986), The Greasy Strangler, The Haunting (1963), The Iron Giant, The Killing of America, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Triplets of Belleville, Threads, Videodrome, Yellow Submarine

Music Genres

Berlin school, chiptunes, disco, electro/80s synth, early electronic, jazz fusion, lounge music, old school EDM, progressive/technical metal, prog rock, psychedelic/space rock, psytrance, surf rock, 80s thrash metal

Musicians

Aorta, Artillery, Blotted Science, Bruce Haack, CA Quintet, Casiopea, Coroner, Death, Dead or Alive, Destruction, Egg, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Frenzy, Gong, Hawkwind, Jean-Jacques Perrey, King Diamond, Mort Garson, Ozric Tentacles, Over Kill, Pink Floyd, Russ Garcia Orchestra, Spiral Architect, Software, Tangerine Dream, Transit Express, Van der Graaf Generator, Vaperror, Voivod, Watchtower, Yes, Zenit

Smells

Cedar wood, Cheap laundry detergent, Cinnamon, Coffee (even if I don’t drink it), Creeks, Deep dish pizza, Fresh office supplies, Leather, Mom and Pop candy stores, My dog, Pastries, Patchouli, Petrichor, Pine and Pumpkin candles, Skunky weed, The greasiest burger you can think of, The forest floor, The first cold night with a furnace, Vanilla

Textures

Anything with bumps, Chrysanthemum blooms, Crinkled paper, Cotton linen, Fleece, Glass, Marble, Mechanical keyboards, Moss, My dog’s ears, Polished wood, Raw beef, Running water, Silicon, Smooth stones, Stress toy foam, Wax, Weighted blankets, Wooden bridges

Video Games

Anatomy, Crash Bandicoot Warped, Earthbound, Growing My Grandpa, Pajama Sam in No Need to Hide when it’s Dark Outside, Rayman 3, Spyro the Dragon, Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid, Yobi’s Basic Spelling Tricks, Yume Nikki

Visual Artists

Bill Watterson, Edward Gorey, Fleischer brothers, Ghastly Graham Ingles, Joan Miro, Jhonen Vasquez, Junji Ito, Michel “Away” Langevin, Peter Max, Phillipe Druillet, Reid Miles, Roger Dean, Rory Hayes, Stan Sakai, Stephen Gammell, Victor Moscoso, Wassily Kandinsky

Frequently Asked Questions

What program do you use?

I draw exclusively with Procreate on a 13 inch iPad Pro. I like to call myself an iPad baby. I used to be a fully traditional artist and worked with mixed media. My most recent traditional media was done with India ink and markers, but I have also worked with oil paints on canvas, charcoal, acrylics, watercolor, and ink wash. I did not pick up on digital art until I was 26 because drawing with a standard tablet felt unnatural. Drawing on the iPad feels almost exactly like drawing on paper, and Procreate is capable of reproducing the textures of traditional tools. I liked it so much I stopped drawing with physical media altogether because Procreate gave me everything I wanted.

What is your favorite subject matter?

I enjoy creating dark, surreal stories about nerdy, strange people wandering into bizarre situations. Nearly everything I’ve written involves a socially awkward, nerdy, but mundane character falling down a rabbit hole of insanity where the laws of reality can break. I like to send an Everyman into a waking nightmare so that the reader can connect with the feeling of disorientation and horror. Anything can happen in the realm of thought. Dreams leak into the waking world. The mind becomes a physical place that can be explored, exposed one’s darkest secrets. I also like to find humor in the weird little mundane parts of life. Crooked pictures, sarcastic advertisements, smiley faces on dangerous objects, comically-timed accidents, and awkward social interactions can all be found here. I also focus on the beauty of quiet moments, often lingering on environment shots, unspoken interactions, and small details to immerse the reader in the story.