When you visit illustrator Ulrich Zeidler at his Cologne home you will notice that his doorbell sign reads “Dr. Ulrich Zeidler”. This is likely the last remaining hint at the fact that this man is “by trade” a cardiovascular surgeon. His career up to his current occupation as freelance designer and illustrator has by no means been straight or in any way conventional

His love of the arts was stimulated and encouraged by his father who confronted his 1967 born son early on with the work of such classic masters as Vermeer, Menzel, Schiele and others. But young Ulrich Zeidler was not satisfied merely admiring the creations of these artists. He rather picked up pen and paper in order to retrace the artifice of the masters with his own hands. Likewise he later examined contemporary French and American comics which held the young man spellbound lastingly in much the same way as did the great masters of old.

What he liked he assimilated – this way Ulrich Zeidler trained his hand and eye long before he so much as thought of using the talent thus acquired for anything beyond pure fun.

That the filling of sketchbooks might serve another purpose he discovered in the late 1970ies when he first layed hands on “The Art of Star Wars”. The design work and the techniques the creators of “Star Wars” used to communicate their ideas and thus made this fantastic film possible impressed him greatly. At this point, with Ralph McQarrie, Joe Johnston and Nilo Rodis-Jamero the first motion picture designers entered Ulrich Zeidler’s personal pantheon. At the time the idea of seeking a career in motion picture design seemed like nothing more than an unattainable dream from the teenager’s point of view. Yet, he had caught the fever.

Zeidler’s work began gravitating around the never-before-seen. He conceived truckloads of flying objects, vehicles and daily-life-appliances filling veritable worlds of paper with things, people and other life forms. Before long artists like Syd Mead (“Blade Runner”), Ron Cobb (“Alien”) and last but not least famous French comic book wizard Jean “Moebius” Giraud who’s film credits include “Alien”, “Willow” and “The Abyss” joined his list of role models.

Nevertheless, for Ulrich Zeidler the end of high school also meant the end of his freedom to draw for the time being. After graduating he was faced with the hard choice of what to do with his life and decided in favor of studying medicine – not least because of his deep curiosity about science.

The idea of being able to keep up the creative work during his leisure time while studying medicine did not stand up to reality. This became all the more evident as practical training progressively dominated Ulrich Zeidler’s medical education. His decision to specialize in cardiovascular surgery, one of the more stressful fields of medicine, further pronounced that effect. Zeidler spent three years in the sweat shop of the surgical workaday routine in which he hardly ever found the time to pick up a pen – except in order to sign surgical procedure reports.

“At one point in time I realized that I could very well live without the O.R. but never would I be able to live without my art”, he says today.

However, Ulrich Zeidler is not the type to give up. He finishes what he has started. In the case of his medical education this even included a clinical elective abroad at the “Texas Heart Institute”, in Houston, TX, graduation from medical school and a doctoral thesis. All of that “summa cum laude”. Nevertheless he took his leave of the medical field when the chance arose.

It came in 1996.

An informal conversation at an incidental meeting led to the offer for Ulrich Zeidler to participate in a fantasy film project as a storyboard artist. Soon after submitting his first sketches he was also asked to be conceptual designer on the project.

Since then he has participated in numerous film- and television projects, storyboarded and illustrated commercials and designed immersive environments for trade fairs such as the EXPO 2000.

Furthermore the scope of his work includes a number of cartoon books as well as many scientifically based life reconstructions and illustrations of dinosaurs for paleontological publications.

Ulrich Zeidler is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 as well as the Alliance of German Designers AGD.