Who are you?
The name is Dennis van Leeuwen. Born Dutch (Netherlands), but have been living in Germany for over 10 years. Illustrating and making it come to life is what I like. But I donât spend enough time with it.
Here are some images:
Itâs me working on a childs face.
Here is a finished portrait. I think I am influenced of the cartoones I saw in the 80âs.
And an unfinished quickdrawing half colored.
He-Man drawing style. 
What is your industry/profession?
I work in the advertisement industry. Do it for myself. Work for a company called Hirschen Group GmbH in Germany. And together with a partner I am starting up xmuse.it. Itâs a Widget-Producing company that sells it digital products via Envato for Adobeâs quickest growing software atm. called Muse. It just released itâs responsive version. I personally think we are still in Beta. But the team and engineers at Adobe thought itâs ready. I have been testing software for a long time. And Adobe products are a known topic of mine. But me (Marketing, UI, Design and Documentation) and Tobias (Programming and Financing) have been in development for almost 1 year now. Our segments is specialized in animation, interactions. Bringing this to Adobe Muse with ease. I looked at all the products made and always found them too complex for non coders to understand. Even Designers think different. I looked at it for 2 years and thought â no, no, no, no. Need to grab me a programmer and steer this.
It also explains my absence here. 
Back to my profession: My first job was in 1995 as a Desktop Publisher. Worked with many Adobe, Quark and Macromedia products over the years. Even Coreldraw, Micosoft products. Over the years my trade has evolved in Desktop Publisher â Print & Digital.
That means, I produce the following:
- All Print products ready for printing, embossing, punch production.
- Color corrections Print & Digital images
- Post production on images. (I once had to build Gisele BĂŒndchen from 3 different pictures. I donât have to rights to show it.)
- Produce online banners (I hope a lot more with Hype)
- Produce digital outdoor advertisement (motion graphics, storytelling)
- Frontend landing pages
- Social media apps and advertisement
- EPUB (digital magazines/app)
Where do you call home?
I call home the place inside my head where no one can reach me. Best combined with a headset and trance music on. Look at me back then:
What is your native language?
I donât believe in one native language. But to answer this question: Dutch.
What have you made with Hype â or what are you planning on using Hype for?
I think about 87 Banners now. I would like to produce more but time is not on my side and I am a visual person. Coding doesnât give me a clear view of what I need to see. So I tend to get lost often. I need to draw what I want and see its function before I can code it. I think the right term is flowchart. That can get messy sometimes. 
What is on the horizon?
Info graphics, small animations, even book or workshops are on the roadmap. I like illustrating and making it come to live. I have this small website of a friend of mine. It has a lovely animation at the start. Was made back then in Adobeâs Edge Animate CC.
Would you call yourself a beginner, novice, or advanced?
Always a beginner. After each goal I see the next one.
Whatâs your favorite design/animation tool (Other than Hype)?
Pencil and paper and my fantasy. That doesnât always come together with what I can produce inside a software tool.
Whatâs the first interaction or animation tool you ever used? (Analog OR digital!)
My first OS was MS DOS (age 7) and later QBasic form Microsoft. And I remember after booting I used PCPaint.
What is your favorite animated film?
Peteâs Dragon. Elliot (the Dragon) just has the right language for anything.