We met RAVEN



Raven, let's start with some personal information...

"Hmmm... I'm fivehundredandeightyfour years old and come from BetaHydroxi, which is the fourth planet of a nice solar-system in the... Oops, that's not supposed for the ordinary human, so... I'm 50/2 years old and I normally come to life when I'm called Harald Wittmaack, better known by my friends as "Harry". In real life, I work as an industrial mechanic! Some of my pals call me a quite romantic dude, still on the hunt for the right woman. (And the right car aswell!)
When it comes to the scene, I mostly do graphics, but only mouse drawn and beneath that I'm the organizer of the lovely Nuance-family! Well, can't imagine anything more to write."

Please give us a quick review of your scene history.

"Not much to say. I started a long time ago in a lame 64-team and then jumped over after some months to Razor1911-C64. I tried to get into coding, but I was just too lazy. Then I discovered the world of graphics and I started to paint on the C64. When I saw the A500, I really fall in love with that machine, left Razor and jumped over to the Amiga, where me and some friends built up NUANCE around 6 years ago. Since then I just worked on the improvements of my pixelling-techniques and that's the whole story! Staying in NUANCE is one
thing in my scene-life that will last forever, means I'll die being a NUANCE-member!"

Though NUANCE is a really old group, they were rather inactive for a long time before Mekka&Symposium'97 - What were the reasons for this?

"The main reason was that I had to fulfill my army-service and most of the other members were only active as long as I nerved them to code and compose. But when coming back from the army, I realized that there was really a big silence around NUANCE, so through motivating the members and giving new life to our team by doing a lot of gfx for other teams and dudes - With that trying to gain members and rebuild NUANCE to what it was around one year ago, we managed to succeed in 1997."

Being the organizer in NUANCE from the beginning on, what are the differences between the early days and now?

"When we started the group some time ago, we were just a bunch of dudes having Amiga's and living in the same town here in the south of Germany. After sorting out the guys that weren't too interested in the scene at all, we became a quite active group. We even had a UK-Section (Mainly the guys that are now in Anathema). In the meantime NUANCE changed a lot... We set up some simple but quite useful group-rules. The most important ones are no double-membership (Because we made some bad experiences in the past) and a maximum amount of 15 members (This is to prevent the group from growing just too large). Normally we meet in the IRC every Sunday evening to do all the organizing things or just to have a chat. Also there are no sections in NUANCE, that means we're just NUANCE and not NUANCE-Germany or NUANCE-Switzerland. It's quite fun to organize it, but sometimes it's really a lot of work and needs a hell lot of time! Up to now it was definitely worth doing that job as an organizer! At this point, I also would like to thanks the new co-organizer Big-Rat/Nuance for helping me a bit with all the things I have to tackle."

Recently you were able to gather quite some sceners in NUANCE - Please tell us about the planned projects.

"Yeah, NUANCE was growing quite fast in the last year from 3 members to 11 now! A lot of talented new dudes (Evrimsson, Grace, Odin etc.) joined us from other teams, like Crux for instance. Some old members came back to their dearest team (Like Andy) And some old members have passed by or got sadly kicked (Kill'O'Byte, X-Poole etc.). But I'm quite happy with the team as it is now. As delay is almost a kind of tradition in our team, I don't promise anything, except that we'll be more active than ever! Planned is a THX-Musicdisc, a Slideshow by Odin, some tiny things for the Symposium (40K's etc.) and our regular productions like the X-Files, our chip-pack Trilobyte and finally our new scene-mag called Wild."

While waiting for further issues of INSOMNIA, the dedicated reader wants to read other publications! What can he expect to read in your diskmag WILD?

"That would be a question to ask Sunny as she took over the job as Main-Editrice, but I think there will be a lot of real-life subjects dealt with. Something that are lacking in other mags, at least I think that too serious and professional-alike scene-mags are just too single-sided - A lot of scene-stuff, but too less other topics. But we'll see how our mag turns out to be! For the first issue we have quite a lot support from other groups and guys writing articles, let's just hope that this will stay the same, as I think mags where all articles are written by one single person are a bit boring!"

Which demo do you like best?

"Here I have to split it up a bit! When it comes to the old stuff, my favorite is still Desert Dream by Kefrens, because of the atmosphere and design Laxity created with that evergreen! When it comes to demos released the last year, I liked Pulse by Nerve Axis the best, because it was one of the demos that really do some timing to the music and show that a high-quality-demo can be done on a 030 too! The only thing NVX's demo was lacking a bit were the mousedrawn graphics! TBL's Captured Dreams is also a piece of demo-art that can make PC-dudes visiting my home go hmmmmmmm, as it really looks nice on the 060! Limited Edition are for sure the newcomers of the last year and their demos always showed the good skills of their members!"

And which production of NUANCE was so far the best/worst in your opinion - Which one got most response from the scene?

"The best was our trackmo called "Subtle Shades". I think that was ranked 2nd at a party called 680x0-convention a long time ago! I like most of our stuff, but I think the worst is an intro called "Trade-Tro", a nasty little intro put together just for fun on a lonely Sunday. We really got nice reactions and good support for our (Big-Rat's) X-Files news-magazine and for our chip-pack called Trilobyte. The X-Files are now released regularly since 21 issues and Trilobyte now reached issue 9 and I think that really shows that the people give us quite good support and we really like to keep on that stuff for a long time now..."

Do you have any favorite Amiga Tool?

"What a question! The tool I use most is PPaint7.0 to do all my pictures! So it's quite my favorite tool around! The things I need to do the whole organizing and stuff are tools like YAM (Very good mailer - And so cheap!) and AWeb, my favorite browser. To rumble around my files, I mostly use MaxonTools and the good old Filemaster! But to be honest, a real favorite tool? I don't have one!"

The lack of good applications was one of the reasons why the Amiga lost it's mass-appeal and many left this platform! What motivates you to continue on this computer? Could you imagine joining the PC scene?

"I was in the PC-scene for 2 or 3 months and I just hated it because of the people only being fixed too much on the hardware, such as: "Aaaargh, I have a P233 blabla and you only a blabla!" I hate this! To less friendship for me. So I left as fast as I got in! My motivation to continue on the Amiga? It's just a nice feeling, a piece of individuality I keep for myself! I don't like to go with the mainstream at all. I don't hate PC's, but it's just not my deal! I'm also not one of those fanatics that love the Amiga for it's great hardware or OS, because it definitely needs some fast pushing up by several developers! But really - Why? Just because of the people and the scene. Just look at TP7, who were the guys that made the party good even when the organization sucked like hell? It were us - the Amiga-sceners! And not those jerks hanging around Quaking to death! Or like the people from Haujobb said: "WE ARE FAMILY!""

I can only agree on that! While we are at parties, which tends to get more and more commercial, have you ever earned any money outside the scene with your computer skills?

"I work in a small firm for computer-animation and commercial- graphics and I also do some commercial web-design - But only if my phone-bill raises to high and I really need the money."

Well, phone-bills is a common problem! Let's talk about your graphics. Which of your recent pictures was hardest to do, which one do you like best?

"The most work was Melting Love. It was my competition-picture at the Symposium97 and the title-picture of the X-Files #15. I think I most liked painting Witch Bitch (X-Files #18 title-picture), because it was really fun doing that while being at a meeting with some other friends around here! Also the colors for the transparency were a pretty hard to paint because of the pixelling. Gosh, I really love that picture! And I like the more Manga-like face I've done there!"

What is your inspiration when drawing?

"It's all about coffee and really loud music - So most of my neighbors exactly know when I'm painting... I had many meetings with the scene-guys from Kempten, Germany, amongst them was Cougar / Artwork, so I learned a lot from him when it comes to dithering.!
It's sad that he'll probably never release any scene-graphics again. He also got a bit out of practice when it comes to mouse-drawn stuff, but his normal paintings are quite cool anyway! I also really like the work done by Danny and my all time favorite was a long time faded away guy called Golem (I think he was in Anarchy).
My favorite artist when it comes to normal art is Salvador Dali. I also like the stuff done by Boris Vallejo (YEAH, I do! Some guys will really cry out at this very point!), Renato Casaro (His posters are fabulous) and some quite unknown airbrush-artists.
But honestly I'm not fixed to any styles, except, that some of you surely already have noticed, that I really like to paint women! Why? Just because they're the most beautiful thing in nature to paint!"

Apart from Cougar, which graphicians are your favorite right now?

"Today the most promising guy is for sure MRK, because he draws a lot of different stuff! Lazur's new slideshow was quite huge when it comes to Megabytes, but it was one of the most boring sliders I have seen in the last year! Most pictures look the same with all that nature stuff and that's just not my deal, but at least it only is of interest if the graphician that does the thing, likes to do it! Some all time favorites are the logos drawn by Niko / Oxygene, they are totally weird & nice!"

Is there a difference between drawing a logo and a picture?

"Pictures take longer time and I really have to like the picture I'm drawing to finish it, or it'll never be finished! That's the main reason, why there are around 15 unfinished pictures on my harddisk. I also can not paint things on demand. If I don't like to paint a logo at the moment, I just don't do it - because it would turn out horrible! Generally there is no difference for me if it's a logo or a picture!"

Which 3 items would you take with you when going to a secluded island?

"Hmm... First of all a nice girl... YEAH! It's not the Amiga that's on the first place - It's second! And third would be a direct double-isdn-internet-24-hour-line. That's just because I'm the total internet addict by now! Which girl to take there? There is a special one, but that has to turn out before I could take her there..."

If you're addicted to the internet, is there any favorite WWW site you can recommend to our readers?

"No, I don't have a favorite web site, except my own and the new NUANCEntial homepage! This is because I don't spend too much time in the web! I just use it for getting info and watch the latest stuff from Aminet! I spend most of the time with IRC, FTP and E-mail."

Considering the scene, would you prefer to live in another country?

"No, I wouldn't want to live in another scene-country! I don't think that it's still important where you come from. Everybody is talking about an United Europe - The scene even has a United World! I don't want to know from what country the members of a group come, most important are the people behind the productions!"

I guess everything has been said, Harry, so you can use the last few bytes for some important messages!

"Thanks! Support X-Files, support Trilobyte and don't forget to send us support for our new magazine called WILD! I also want to greet all members of the NUANCEntial family...
People who want to know more about me (Personal things, sexual favorites) should dial 555-RavenNCE@gmx.net! CYA at #amigascne!"




by Grey (c) Insomnia'98