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Vienna-based artist Sarah-Lisa Hleb is a freelance illustrator known for her funny characters, colorful visuals, and soft, light-filled style.
As a self-taught artist, Sarah-Lisa has carved out her niche in the world of children’s books, comics, mascots, and animation design. Her illustrations are playful and expressive, often featuring reduced, flowing forms that balance charm with elegance. She draws inspiration from manga, video games and cartoons — a love that began in childhood and continues to shape her work today.
When she’s not drawing, you’ll likely find her playing Dungeons & Dragons, video games, or watching anime in the company of her two cats, Lionel and Luna.

• sarahlisahleb.com
• @sarahlisahleb

Dominik Schmaderer is a Vienna-based 3D artist and Head of Art at Simuverse. Having originally studied Multimedia Art at HTL Spengergasse, his passion lies in game development, particularly in technical and mechanical modelling.

Since joining Simuverse, Dominik has cultivated a deep fascination with machinery and complex mechanical systems. His work across a range of titles in both gaming and simulation includes projects such as Factorio (developed by Wube Software), SubwaySim 2, and the upcoming Winter Resort Simulator 3.

This experience has provided him with a strong understanding of how real-world mechanics operate and how to convincingly translate them into virtual environments. The level of precision required to create functional digital twins of vehicles and machinery continues to drive his ambition to craft believable designs - even when the boundary between 3D art and engineering becomes almost indistinguishable.

Michael Janser is a self-taught 3D artist who began his journey during the COVID-19 lockdowns. What started as a casual interest in 3D modelling and rendering in Unreal Engine quickly evolved into a deep passion, inspiring him to transition from studying physics to pursuing 3D art full-time.
After joining Simuverse and entering the games industry, Michael took on the role of Project Lead for the upcoming Winter Resort Simulator 3. As a versatile generalist, he plays a vital role in shaping the project from the ground up - contributing to workfl ow design, tool development, and asset creation.

My name is Tamás Dancs, and I am a Project Art Director making digital magic at DIGIC. Based in Budapest and London, I lead the concept art team and oversee production design for AAA CGI animation.
My work spans a wide range of projects, from full creative collaborations to in-studio service work, covering grand narratives and blockbuster commercials. With a background in advertising and multimedia arts, I have contributed to international campaigns for several IPG agencies before joining DIGIC.
My portfolio includes the episode "The Way of All Things" for Secret Level on Amazon, cinematics for Call of Duty: Vanguard, and various trailers and cinematics over the past seven years for clients such as Saber Interactive, Ubisoft, Bungie, and Square Enix. I enjoy helping clients and artists grow, tackling complex narrative, artistic, and technical challenges in one of the most exciting industries in the world.

• DIGIC Pictures

Aaron Dimaano is an Animator with a 3D Generalist background. After studying at TU Wien, SAE Institue Vienna and later AnimSchool, he started his career working in TV and feature animation. In 2023 he pivoted and joined Mipumi Games, where he is working on game projects big and small. His regularly shifting responsibilities include anything from creature animation on AAA productions to helping establish in-house animation pipelines for internal projects, such as the recently announced Black Jacket.

• MiPuMi

Having originally studied at the Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna, Kilian started his art career with a focus on graphic design. However, on the side, he was already working on growing his presence as an artist under the pseudonym “sacrxm” – mostly online, but also offline as an exhibitor at local comic, manga and anime conventions. As time went on, he realized that his true passion lies in crafting stories (and finding solutions to niche problems). This eventually led him to pursue game development after graduating in 2019. Kilian has been with Mipumi as a Digital Artist since 2021, where he’s helped breathe life into their original IPs such as Howl and the recently announced Black Jacket.

• MiPuMi
• Instagram

Stefan Srb (pseudonym "leafthief") is a parent, game developer and pixel artist from Vienna.
Stefan graduated in Digital Arts at Fachhochschule Hagenberg and joined Mipumi after concluding his studies in 2011. Initially working as a Game Designer/Artist, he worked on ports, live service and original games, notably The Lion's Song.
Stefan is currently Creative Director at Mipumi, initiating and directing original games, like the recently announced Black Jacket, at the company. He is driven by the ambition to make players experience stories through mechanics and a fondness for pixels and low-poly 3D. His favourite animated movie is Porco Rosso, which may or may not tell you something about him.

• Instagram
• MiPuMi

Writer-Director, Story Consultant
Toni Weiss is an award-winning writer-director and screenwriter. He has a career with over 20 years in animation and storytelling. Toni began as a comic book artist before moving into directing and has since created pilots for Nickelodeon, the most successful animated Disney music video in YouTube history, and served as Head of Story on Austria’s first animated feature, Welcome to Siegheilkirchen (aka "Rotzbub").

His work has won multiple awards, and he has worked as a story consultant for Traumfabrik Babelsberg, Lieblingsfilm München, Aichholzer Film, Superfilm, Arx Anima, Sky Austria and leading European studios. Toni is currently developing a $10M animated feature announced in Cannes 2025 and an animated series. He lives and works in Vienna.

Awards
L.A. Independent Festival 2024 – Outstanding Achievement Short Film, ASIFA Austria Award, Best Austrian Animation, Content Award 2013, Winner W24 Partner Award – „Talking Ginger“, Austrian CG Award 2013 – Nomination „Talking Ginger“, Content Award 2012 – Nomination „You Get Me“, Austrian Computer Graphics Award 2012 – Best Character/Best Short ACGA „You Get Me“, Animago Award 2012, Step-by-Step 2005 – Best Screenplay, Houston Worldfest –Silver Star, Chicago Film Festival – Creative Excellence Award

• Homepage
• Storystarter.coach
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Sian Warren is a Creature Modeler with over 7 years of experience, working for large VFX houses like ILM London and MPC Film character Lab. Starting out on ILMs Jedi Academy Graduate scheme, concepting and creating prehistoric creatures for Netflix: Life on Our Planet to an anatomical deep dive into lions and character design for Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King. She has worked on a broad range of species; alive, extinct and alien for films, advertising and tv production to publications with The Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology; collaborating alongside Professor of Biology: Dr Stuart Sumida. She is now working as a Freelance Snr Creature/character Artist at Twin and creating educational model tutorials with FXPHD.

• Instagram

illo is a color-driven design studio focusing on motion design, illustration, and art direction. Led by the creative duo Ilenia Notarangelo and Luca Gonnelli, the studio aims a minimal and colorful aesthetic, translating complex concepts into clear, accessible storytelling. With an international team of 15, illo has worked with both innovative startups and global brands such as Google, Meta, Samsung, Apple, and many more. illo also has a sister studio, Algo, specializing in data visualization, that builds innovative creative tools that make motion design more accessible within organizations.

• illo.tv

Barbara Galante is Head of People & Culture and a Green Film Consultant at arx anima animation studio in Vienna. In her work, she combines sustainability with a focus on people and company culture.

As a Green Film Consultant for Animation & VFX, she supports arx anima in implementing more environmentally friendly practices and establishing sustainable standards in daily studio operations. At the same time, in her People & Culture role, she works to ensure that working conditions are fair, transparent, and inclusive.

Her aim is to connect ecological responsibility with human collaboration in film production, demonstrating that sustainable practices are achievable even in creative environments.

• Arx Anima
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Patrícia J. Reis (b. 1981, Lisbon, PT) is a Vienna-based media artist and researcher whose practice explores human and more-than-human entanglements with technology through feminist hacking, sensory interaction, and embodied interfaces. Her installations investigate touch, consent, and care, often inviting intimate, active participation. Reis studied Painting (ESAD, 2004), Media Art (MA, Lusófona University, 2011), and completed a Ph.D. in Art at the University of Évora (2016). She was a fellow of the FCT of Portugal (2011–15) and Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Beja (2006–12). From 2020–23 she was postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna within the project Feminist hacking: building circuits as an artistic practice, and guest researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute, TU Berlin. Since 2015, she has lectured at the Digital Arts Department, University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she currently leads the FWF Elise Richter PEEK project Hacking the body as the black box. Since 2012, she has been a board member of Mz Baltazar’s Lab*, Vienna’s feminist artist-run space. Reis has exhibited widely, received the Outstanding Artist Award in Media Art (AT, 2021), and participated in international programs and residencies, including IMPACT ART San Francisco, Banff Centre (CA), HWK Delmenhorst, and Edith-Russ-Haus (DE).

• patriciajreis.com
• Instagram
• hackingthebody.org

Peter Mindek is a co-founder of nanographics, a visualization studio based in Vienna. He received his PhD from TU Wien in 2015 for his research in data visualization, and afterwards continued as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Visual Computing and Human-Centered Technology, TU Wien. His research interests include molecular rendering for biological visualization, storytelling, and procedural content generation. Currently, he works primarily as a 3D artist and sound designed at nanographics, creating animations that explain science and technology, and as a software developer, focusing on studio's in-house rendering software.

• Soundcloud
• Youtube
• Instagram

Simon Repp is an interdisciplinary media designer and developer working on media and systems with a focus on ethics, simplicity and sustainability.

His practice melds a formal education in information technology, an academic background in digital arts, his many-faceted involvement with local and global hacktivist communities, and an insatiable curiosity for
experimentation and re-envisioning what technology can be.

Most recently he has been developing emancipatory audiovisual publishing technologies («Faircamp» and the «Hyper 8 Video System») for indepent artists, communities and organizations under grants from the european commission, the state of austria and the austrian Internet Stiftung, as well as advocating for a critical perspective on technology through his involvement in the permacomputing and libre graphics communites.

Stefanie Wuschitz (b. 1981, Vienna, Austria) is a data-researchartist based in Vienna. Her scholarship generates data that shapes her artistic output. She investigates the entanglement of gender, technology and power. Within the young, Eurocentric field of data studies, her current projects focus on a blind spot of South East Asia: Indonesia’s position within fast shifting techno empires. Her degrowth inspired artistic method entails upcyling, salvaging sustainable, locally sourced materials to create ecofeminist interactive art installations. Her drawings and animations explore new forms of storytelling, knowledge transfer and documentary. She graduated in the MFA program Transmedia Arts in 2006 (Brigitte Kowanz) and completed her Master’s at NYU 2008 at Tisch School of the Arts in NYC. In 2009 she founded the hacklab and collective Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory. She completed her Doctorate on Feminist Hackerspaces at TU Vienna in 2014. Since then she has held post-doctoral positions at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, TU Vienna, Universität der Künste Berlin, and TU Berlin. She conducted several arts-based research projects as PI (titled Feminist Hacking, Salon of Open Secrets, Coded Feminisms in Indonesia). Her artwork was featured in solo exhibitions, film festivals and international venues.

• stefaniewuschitz.at
• Instagram

Christian Seifried (born April 30, 1981, in Graz) is a multidisciplinary 3D artist and motion designer with over 15 years of professional experience.
Christian founded rnk.studio in 2008 and later completed a Master’s degree in Sculpture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (die Angewandte) in 2012.

His expertise spans 3D scanning, medical visualization, extended reality (XR) experiences, design, prototyping, and 3D printing solutions. With a strong background in both traditional arts and cutting-edge technologies, Christian develops innovative visual content that bridges creativity and technical precision.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Michael Wilhelm is a multimedia artist and designer whose work moves between sculpture, digital media, and immersive technology. He studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and has since built a practice that links handcrafted thinking with real-time engines, AI, and interactive systems.
As founder of Wilhelm Media and co-founder of SpiceLabs, he develops projects that translate complex themes—scientifi c, cultural, or industrial—into experiences people can see, touch, and explore. His installations and visualizations often work like experiments: they open up hidden layers of material, history, or environment and invite audiences to take part in the discovery.
Michael’s approach is shaped by his rural roots, where iron, wood, and water meet in a long tradition of making. That sense of craft and precision underlies even his most high-tech projects. Whether creating animations, spatial media, or large-scale public works, his aim is to connect clarity with imagination, bridging fact and fiction, industry and art.

• www.linkedin.com/in/michael-wilhelm-6b3945234

I am a Technical Artist with a passion for problem solving, knowledge sharing, and everything procedural. At Cloud Imperium Games, I develop Houdini tools that support the Environment Art teams on Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
Beyond game development, I’ve collaborated with SideFX on educational content and workshops for Houdini, such as Project Grot and Project Skylark. I also enjoy writing articles that break down my work and explain core Houdini concepts.
Outside of writing, I create videos on social media where I showcase procedural experiments and tool development. Sometimes practical, often silly, but always with the goal of learning and passing knowledge forward.

• Instagram: @jooleanboolean

Richard Anderson, known by his alias "Flaptraps," is an American concept artist, illustrator, and painter with over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry. He started his professional career in 2003 as a 3D artist at ArenaNet, where he worked on the Guild Wars franchise. Richard later broke into the concept art and has since contributed to numerous high-profile projects in film, video games, and publishing. Titles include Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman: Arkham Knight, Destiny 2, Captain Marvel, The Creator, and Jurassic World Rebirth.

• flaptrapsart.com
• www.linkedin.com/in/richard-anderson-71a69714/

I‘m a passionate Austrian FX-TD and VFX-Instructor working on featurefilm- andTV-series including „Altered Carbon“, for which I was honored with a VES-Award in February 2019. My strength lies in procedural FX-simulation, HDA-toolbuilding, lighting, shading and rendering –supported by profound team spirit, problem solving and good communication abilities.

• TRIXTER
• Homepage Scratch ARTS

David Nasser is a director and animation director with a strong foundation in visual storytelling, honed at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he specialized in animation. Over the course of his career, he has held senior and lead animator roles at top studios, such as BlueSky Studios, Fortiche Production, MPC, SONY Pictures Imageworks, Illumination Entertainment, Mikros Animation, XILAM Animation, all across Europe, the UK, and the United States.

David’s credits span a wide range of acclaimed animated features and series, including Arcane, Despicable Me, Hotel Transylvania, Rio 2, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many others. He served as animation director on the Oscar-nominated film I Lost My Body, as well as Zombillenium, The Tiger’s Apprentice, and the recently completed Film Stitch Head.

At the moment, he is directing animation for the upcoming feature High in the Clouds and co-directing two additional animated films that are currently in development. Beyond his film work, David is passionate about teaching, sharing his experience, and engaging with younger generations.

• Website
• LinkedIn
• IMdB

Berk Demirci is a 3D-Generalist, mainly focusing on modelling, environments, lookdev and lighting. After studying visual effects and animation in Vienna, he worked on some Commercials and Movies. His latest project at arx anima are "The Super Elfkins", "Monster Mia" and "Pirate Mo and the Legend of the red ruby", where is main tasks included creating procedural generated assets and environments in Houdini and lookdev for stylized vegetation.

• ARX ANIMA

Brian is an Illustrator & game artist living in Vienna, where he has worked as a freelancer for the past 25 years.

As an instructor at various educational institutions he has taught both classic painting and composition courses as well as game art, visual development, and animation.

Brian is also an active community organizer for AustrianIllustration, the local organization for artists in Austria.

• Linktree

David Arno Schwaiger is a VFX environment artist who worked at the Generalist Department at Industrial Light & Magic and at Blur Studio (famously known for being the incubators of Love, Death and Robots on Netflix). His passion is storytelling. He firmly believes a powerful narrative can change our lives for the better.
For the past 20 years he has worked as a director, writer, editor, concept and VFX artist. From directing commercials and documentaries to editing TV series and feature films all the way to creating environments for Star Wars, he approaches the art of filmmaking holistically.

• artstation.com/davidarnoschwaiger
• davidas.at

Heri Irawan is an amazing freelance artist for games and films and also an art teacher based in Austria, but his path to success was anything but easy. Growing up in the slums of Indonesia, Heri started working at a very young age to help support his family, while also working hard to hone in on his artistic talents that would eventually lead him to the beginnings of his fruitful career. In this interview, Bobby talks to Heri about his difficult childhood, the life event that brought about the start of his freelance career, and what he hopes for his children's futures. Heri shares a number of fascinating stories from his life that will inspire all artists and prove that anything is possible if you put in the work and keep a positive mindset.
Heri is a principal Concept artist at Amazon Games and Teacher at the University of Applied Arts

• Artstation

Hi, my name is Laura Darja Wolf and I studied Game Art and 3D Animation at SAE Institute Vienna and later specialized in Game Environments at Vertex School. After working as a 3D Environment Artist in game development at Niorun studios, I joined arx anima as a Surfacing and Lookdev Artist, contributing to feature films such as “Monster Mia” and “Pirate Mo and the Legend of the red ruby”.
Having experienced both industries, I’m excited to share the differences I’ve discovered so far with you!

• ARX ANIMA
• Artstation
• LinkedIn

Réné-Sophie Lauth completed her degree in Animation & Game at the Hochschule Darmstadt in 2023 while joining arx anima as a PipelineTD Intern. By September of the same year, she advanced to a PipelineTD Junior, contributing to the feature film Die Heinzels - Neue Mützen, Neue Mission, where she was responsible for developing pipeline tools for USD-based workflows. Since September 2024, she has been working as a Houdini Generalist on Pirate Mo and the Legend of the Red Ruby, focusing on R&D as well as procedural environment and asset generation.
She is particularly drawn to Houdini for its procedural, node-based approach, which allows for exceptional control and adaptability in complex tasks. She enjoys the problem-solving aspect of her work - exploring multiple creative solutions, building efficient systems, and expanding Houdini’s capabilities through her own code.

• ARX ANIMA
• LinkedIn