Reine KURTH

born on September 6, 1973 in Thionville (Moselle, Lorraine, France)
lives in Bremen (Germany)

I've been drawing since I was a child. I was lucky to have good art teachers at school and high scool. However I chose the "easy" way, or at least the conventional way, by following scientific study, and eventually getting a degree in Aeronautical Engineering (no, really) from ENSICA school in Toulouse. Now I develop embedded real time software :) Until recently I worked for CS Communications and Systems, for customers like Siemens VDO Automotive, Thales Avionics or Airbus France. Now I'm employed at OHB Systems in Germany! I work on the prestigious Galileo programme :D

Until the end of my studies I drew without thinking too much about it, and often people were asking me to do things, either for them, or posters for various events, or T-shirts for their club... But when I began to work (March 1997) I began to wonder, all the more as I did not have so much time to spare: what should I draw? Why? For whom?
In order to keep my hand in, I began to follow art classes, especially life drawing (nude drawing). I'm still doing that, and I learn a lot.
About one year after I had accessed the Internet from my first computer (an Apple iMac) (October 2002), I discovered various amateur artists' websites, began to take part in Allfanarts forum, thought to myself: Why not me?, and decided to launch Créatures Ephémères...

From 2003 to 2006 I followed the courses of AtelierBD [French], an online comics and illustration school.

And if I am not behind my computer screen or drawing table chances are, sadly, that I am slouching in my couch, watching some TV series (despite initial reservations I began watching Prison Break and now I'm a shameless fan! could also be Bones, Men in Trees, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives... Now I've also begun watching German series, such as Der letzte Bulle ^_^"); with luck I'd be watching our cultural and European channel Arte; or it could be some anime - lately Canal+ has graced us with GTO, Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, and more! Since I've had a DVD player I've bought almost only anime, such as Ghost in the Shell, the cult movie by Oshii Mamoru, Lamu Beautiful Dreamer... also by Oshii, Lilo et Stitch, Animatrix... And after 10 years of patience I've finally set my hands on Tenshi no Tamago (Angel's Egg), an animation oddity by Oshii and Amano!!

Or I could be lost in some book or comic/graphic novel, possibly a science-fiction novel (such as Neuromancer by William Gibson or the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois MacMaster Bujold), or a fantasy book (maybe an n-th re-reading of Tolkien?!), or a crime novel. As for comics, or, in French, bande dessinée, which is not quite the same thing ;-) my favorite authors are Hugo Pratt, Claire Wendling or Joan Sfar - but I always look out for new things, such as Shenzen by Canadian animator Guy Delisle, Ghost World by Dan Clowes (I'm quite proud to have discovered this before it was made into a movie!), Twentieth Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa (so gripping!), ...

Lately I'm getting into artbooks: Claire Wendling again, Amano, Morimoto Koji...

Of course I can't list all the books I like or that had an influence on me (plus it's boring for everyone, isn't it? ;-) Anyway reading has always been an important part of my life, as well as imagining the characters in the books (or drawing comics and anime characters in my own style), as you will see in my Gallery!

If you have any more questions, remarks or thoughts, you can contact me by e-mail!