Pickman's Apprentice: Fufu Frauenwahl vs. Liv Rainey-Smith
Pickman's Apprentice is a quick drawing competition. Artists have 90 minutes in which to plan and execute an illustration based on a Lovecraftian beastie and a location. The audience will pick the winner and the pieces will be silent auctioned for charity.
Liv Rainey-Smith's original art is created through xylography, the practice of carving and printing wood. Rainey-Smith draws upon both European and Japanese techniques to create her work and favors working with natural materials as much as possible. She finds inspiration in early European prints, esoteric traditions, folklore, weird fiction, and the natural world. She won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 2025. Rainey-Smith's woodcut art illustrates The Starry Wisdom Library Catalogue of the Greatest Occult Book Auction of All Time, and accompanies her story in The Dagon Collection.
FuFu is a German-American comic book artist and illustrator. He studied Visual Communication in Germany and "la Bande Dessinée“ (comics) in Angoulême, France.
Since around 2000 FuFu has worked as a freelance illustrator in various fields. He has done countless illustrations for role playing games, but has also worked on books, stage productions, computer games, and animation. In 2013 he created the Zombie-card game Zombory. His personal comics have appeared in many anthologies and zines in several countries and typically revolve around the surreal adventures of Ray Murphy – Detective of Dreams and his assistant Molluskhead.
Today he lives in Portland, Oregon and Berlin, Germany, with his partner Susanna, who is a painter and a modelmaker for the film industry and their son Rocco.