Hi!
My name is Steven Bagatzky and welcome to my blog.
I’m a freelance commercial illustrator available for contract work, but you can also purchase licenses for the art you see on this blog or support me via donations to allow me to spend more time creating my art. Send e-mail to: kontakt(aet)bagatzky.de
With that out of the way, here’s some more personal info about me.
I was born in 1983 in Lörrach, I grew up in Baden-Württemberg for a few years before moving to the Saarland. I did my time in the nine-year gymnasium, graduated in 2002, and went on to the mandatory 1 year of civil service (instead of military service).
Finally free I chose to study Communications Design at the Hochschule der bildenden Künste Saar. I was there for six years and received my diploma in 2009.
After which I moved to Hamburg, and several years later I moved to Leipzig, and then to Berlin.
Since late 2003 I’ve also been working as a freelance illustrator. I started with flash game art, then switched to doing art for advertising storyboards and animatics. Sprinkle in some board game art, book illustrations, concept art and other odd projects.
In 2011 I got the opportunity to join the browser games company Bigpoint. I worked as the Lead Concept Artist side by side with the Lead 3D Artist and the Lead UI Artist. I only stayed there for a year as I was not (yet) ready for a purely managerial role.
Several years of freelancing followed, continuing the mix of advertising work, print, and games work.
Until I joined Berlin-based design studio karakter full-time as a senior creative consultant in 2018. It was my pleasure to be part of the company maturing and leading teams of artists vastly more talented than myself, creating work for leading media properties.
Lacking perspective at the time, I decided to go back to freelancing starting 01. August 2021.
We are graciously permitted to co-habitat a space with our rescue dog Yoshi. Yoshi (a boxer-hunting-whatever mix) came to us during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had to put down our beloved boxer Elmo months prior due to untreatable cancer, and we probably still very much felt the loss when we decided to take in Yoshi (who was called Brix at that time).
Due to Yoshi’s background, we are now somewhat restricted with how we can spend our leisure time. But we still go bouldering now and then at least for a little bit. I play a lot of indie games rogue-lite games, and I devour audiobooks like crazy (mostly Fantasy). I read & listened to more than 200 books in 2023.
And that’s all that I can think of to say about myself