About heavy grafix

I'm Rudi Kirschen, a technical artist and creative technologist in Leipzig. I make graphics for TV, write software and 3D-print objects. Sounds like three jobs. To me it's one.

Graphics that explain things

Since 2013 I've made explainer graphics, 3D and VFX, mostly for German factual and documentary TV: Galileo and Galileo X-Plorer on ProSieben; Terra X, ZDFzeit, Frontal and Die Spur on ZDF. Add to that tech videos for creators like Felix Bahlinger, Jonas Falk and Moekit, and work for brands such as SENEC and Borussia Dortmund. More than 250 productions so far, and three in four shots in my showreel involve 3D.

I've taken an X-ray look inside the German chancellor's car and simulated a dam breaking in a drowned town. The yardstick never changes: in the end, someone should understand something they've never seen like that before.

No tool for the job? I'll build one

Plenty of graphics come back every episode: maps, scores, measurements. So I write pipelines that turn data into broadcast-ready graphics. My vintage maps are generated in code as 8K layers, with position data for After Effects and Blender. Spreadsheet measurements become animated comparison graphics. Tools like these have grown into my own apps and plugins under heavy grafiX Labs.

I pick up new tech early. A TV comparison for Moekit uses Gaussian splatting, and I run AI models on my own machines. I use AI deliberately and I'm upfront about where it was involved. Almost all of my showreel was made without it.

A nerd with a workshop

I built and water-cooled my workstation, "Anvil Core", myself, and I spread render jobs across several Macs. The studio also has a fleet of 3D printers. They turn out props for YouTube videos, camera-rig accessories, a design study for a sim-racing paddle shifter, and parts that start as a 3D scan, move on to CAD and end up as a print.

For me, graphics, code and objects aren't a balancing act. It's one craft: figuring out how something works and building it so other people get it too. Want to show something no camera can capture, or need a tool that doesn't exist yet? Tell me what you have in mind.