He became renowned as an engraver in the city of Augsburg working for the Custos workshop founded by his step father.

After his father's death in 1588, his mother remarried Dominicus Custos and he and his brother Wolfgang became his pupils.

[1] He also trained in Venice from 1601 to 1604 under Hendrick Goltzius and worked briefly in the printing shop of Giusto Sadeler.

[1] His anatomy broadsides, Catoptri Microcosmici ('Mirrors of the Microcosm'), produced after designs by the medical doctor Johannes Remmelin and published by Stephan Michelspacher, were much reprinted after their original publication in 1613, including a 1615 pamphlet, a 1619 book, reprints in German, Latin, Dutch and English, as well as a 1754 Italian plagiarism.

The family business declined following the Thirty Years War but the next generation, led by Wolfgang's sons Bartholomäus and Philipp Kilian who trained in France and Italy became book illustrators in the baroque style.