The Creator

[Janina]

Maybe you know me... I'm Janina from Frankfurt (Germany) and the creator of this website.

When I was still in school I used to draw my friends and celebrities in South Park style. Then I thought: "Hey, maybe this would be a nice online tool for people who can't draw themselves." And the SP-Studio was born. I am not a real coder, so all I know about Flash was learned by trial and error.
After studying I worked for an advertising agency for a couple of months but I realized that's not my kind of job. I need freedom and enough time to work on my own projects. So I decided to risk working as a freelancer for webdesign and illustrations - and I was lucky, because I can still pay my rent .

Now I am 29 years old (I guess I am the oldest around here?), though I am often told I look younger. Maybe this comes from my "childish" hobbies. I love all kind of video- and boardgames, collect Lego minifigs and South Park merchandsing and visitors say our home looks like a toy museum. My biggest hobby used to be painting / drawing, but unfortunately I got a bit lazy lately. I should finish more pictures. Oh, and my husband and I love movies. Our DVD collection contains more than 1000 titles and is still growing. I rarely watch TV.

My favorite movies include Memento, Natural Born Killers, Life of Brian, Highlander, The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist, V for Vendetta, American Beauty, Shoot em up, Ju On, Battle Royale, Being John Malkovich, Batman begins, Donnie Darko, Little shop of Horrors, Braindead... and many trash horror movies . They are the best for a funny evening with friends.
My favorite TV show is South Park (sure), but I am also a big fan of Lost and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I grew up in a wonderful house (over 100 years old, built by an artist) with a big garden and a lot of pets. So though I live in a big city I enjoy nature and to be around animals. We can't have cats or dogs here, but my hamsters Snood and Knoet are cute too.

What else can I tell about myself... I hate girlie stuff, superficiality and prejudices. I never wear skirts, I think make up is ugly and I can fix my computer myself. Most of the time .

And that's me:

[bellaXraven]

Haha! I'm not a big fan of girlie stuff either!

[Caribou]

You know, this has been one of my very favourite websites since I first got regular internet access, years and years ago. Like, top five, consistently. And it's only got better in that time.

Janina, you are a legitimate legend as far as I'm concerned. Your hard work is much appreciated.

[Till]

thats true!

nice professor chaos costume, Janina do you wear it at halloween or carneval?

That Prof. Chaos costume is awesome

Janina do you have a lazy eye or (please don't take offence) are you pulling a funny face?

[Janina]

Thank you guys, I don't know what to say .

@ViralMonster: Oh, I am not offended by it. But you are right, it was even wore as a little kid. I had eye surgery before going to school because my parents were afraid I would be made fun of. It helped a lot, but especially when I focus on one object (like looking into a camera) you can still notice my little problem. But I don't care, that's why I don't want another surgery.
What's more annoying about it is the fact that I can only watch with one eye at the same time (happens to many crosseyed people). So I can not see 3D... not in movies, not in real life. It's no big disadvantage as long as I don't want to become a professional basketball player, but it's really frustrating when you can't watch 3D movies. It's all blurry for me. That's why I hope this 3D trend stops soon .

Oh Don't worry it's starting to die down. And it's good to know your proud of it I'm proud of the fact that my neck bones are extremely tender giving me a rather hunched look too.

[Caribou]

[Till]

thats true. I hate them too.

[Jetpack-guy]

by the way... i googled professor chaos costume and janina's came 3rd

[Till]

haha

[Janina]

It's a shame I made this costume for a contest and they never published the results. You could win a rare South Park Xbox 360 if you submitted a photo of you in a South Park costume. I guess I was the only one who tried it, so they decided to keep the prize instead of giving it away . The website never mentioned the contets again...

But what's internet fame compared to a boring South Park Xbox?

...

Goddamnit

Damn, that's rough

[Till]

Oh...
The world is soooo big, and you was the only one? ...

[Janina]

I don't know it, but it was a German gaming website and the feedback in the comments was VERY small. So most South Park fans didn't even know about this contest. I guess something like this would make more sense on a big South Park or cosplay website. You need to invest time and even money to make a costume... most won't do this, especially if they don't even like the show and are just gamers. When you just do a quiz or maybe a drawing contest more people take part. That's why I think I might have been the only one who entered. If there had been more, they wouldn't have canceled it.

True, True

[Janina]

JCDC... I can tell you a story about this so called "designer".

When Jean-Charles de Castelbajac announced a whole collection of South Park clothes I was very thrilled. At first. Then I looked through it and noticed MY SP-Studio drawings were used for some of the clothes. He (or most likely someone who works for him) used SP-Studio.de to create a look-a-like for him. They edited it a bit in Photoshop, but not much. He earns tons of money, without asking for permission, without giving credit or accepting my rules (NO commercial use).

When someone uses my drawings on a private homepage without linking to sp-studio.de this is not okay, but it can happen and most likely it's just a little kid who doesn't know better. Nothing to freak out about. But a famous, rich designer who works in this business for so long should know better! I try to keep this project online though I don't earn much money, so every donation is helpful. I get donations and friendly feedback from people who don't have much money (or time) themselves, even if they just use the pictures for a birthday card or as their desktop wallpaper. And then somebody like this comes along and makes big money with a stolen picture. It's not fair - not to me and not to everybody who respects the copyright and asks for permission first.

That's why I don't want to see his fashion anymore...

[Jetpack-guy]

oh..i saw it on vsauce's LÚT and just followed the link.

edit: i deleted the link and most of the feedback

[Janina]

NO!
Come on, you don't need to censor the forum, this is NOT cool . You really don't need to delete posts all the time (this is meant for all mods).

You only should delete things if they are against the board rules:
- warez
- intense spamming
- insults (if they are really insulting)

Just because I don't like this guy doesn't mean everything written about him should disappear. If there was anything wrong with those posts I would have delete them myself and explained it, right?

what's warez?

[Janina]

If somebody posts a link to a website/file that's not legal. For example pirated software, copyrighted music, Hollywood movies or full South Park episodes which are not on the official website.
This won't happen often, but we have to take care of it because it is against the law to allow links to content like that.

Aaaah, thanks

[Janina]

I have not been around for some days because I have finished a big project I have been working on since last october. I started a t-shirt online shop with my husband! We both love silly plays on words and funny t-shirts, and we always wanted to work together on a big project. So this is what we came up with:





The concept is to not put text on the shirts. The images should speak for themselvs and work like little riddles.
Unfortunately many of them are hard to understand if you do not speak German, but some work in English as well. For example the "pink punker" (instead of the "pink panther"). The "tea-shirt", "LEGOpard", "Monster of Loch NES" and "Who wants to be a melonair?". Of course I draw the pictures myself.

Have a look at this new shop if you like - and if you enjoy it it would be great if you would tell your friends about it . We need a lot of support right now... so I hope some people can laugh about or shirts.

Now I have time again, so I will try to finish a forum update next week.

[Till]

This is awesome, Janina.

The monster of loch ness is my favourite.
But what was spa`s part of this? Did he had the ideas?

[Janina]

We have the ideas together. But he does the whole "management" in the background, like preparing my pictures so they can be printed, he deals with the Spreadshirt company, updates the shop and homepage and keeps an eye on Google+ and Twitter. I could not have done this without him, because so I can focus on drawing the pictures and he does the rest .

[Janina]

I did not know the name but I am sure I have seen some of their designs. They are really cool!