CHRISTIAN LORENZ SCHEURER

Christian Lorenz Scheurer was born in Bern, Switzerland. Son of a zoologist father and an artist mother, he lived in many countries throughout his childhood; from the bush in South Africa to the Seychelles Islands. He made his abitur in math and science in Liestal, Switzerland and went on to art academy in Brussels, Belgium. After winning the prestigious Philip Morris Award for his graphic novels, he was selected to be one of the official artists of the 700-year celebration of Switzerland. In Brussels, he worked on several movies (such as OPEN SKIES and RAX) as well as a number of award-winning commercials. During this time, Christian was hit by lightning in his penthouse apartment. After a successful recovery, he realized that life can be short and that he needed to quickly pursue his dream of going to work for movies in Hollywood. Armed with his portfolio of sketches, he knocked on the door of Digital Domain where he was employed as a concept artist in the New Media Department. Before long, he was hired on his first Hollywood film, THE FIFTH ELEMENT. For the next two years worked as a freelance designer on a number of commercials, theme parks and feature films such as TITANIC, DARK CITY, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and THE MATRIX.

Christian was one of the first Hollywood designers to join Square One in Honolulu, Hawaii to work on FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN. After spending 2 years as a concept artist on the film, he switched to the Games division, where he involved in designing the video game FINAL FANTASY IX. After the release of the game, he returned to work on the movie, this time as a digital matte painter. He also did digital concept and matte art for Square's contribution to the ANIMATRIX project.

Christian was Art Director on Electronic Art's "Return of the King" video game, Conceptual Art Director on Maxis' upcoming game "Spore," and Production Designer on EA Japan's next generation fighting game. He is currently visual consultant to industry leaders such as Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy), whose games are forthcoming for Microsoft, David Perry (Shiny, Inc.), creator of The Matrix games, and Will Wright (creator of the Sims), whose forthcoming project "Spore" has garnered worldwide attention. In 2005, The Gnomon Workshop published two of his training DVDs on how to create matte paintings and high-end conceptual art.

In 2006 he released his first book ENTROPIA: A Collection of Unusually Rare Stamps (Design Studio Press) which he successfully optioned off to a major Hollywood Studio - a CG feature film is in the works.

Along with his current work on Entropia (the film), Christian also teaches at Art Center College of Design (Pasadena) - offering classes on Visual Storytelling and mentoring Senior Projects. He lives with his lovely wife and his baby daughter Kiki in Topanga Canyon.

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