(bi)weekly update

I don't have time to finish the written part, so I've been postponing new post, but enough is enough. I'll guess today is just about pictures, then.

A backup plan is not a good plan at all.

(Slightly longer this time. I was supposed to be posting it on sunday, but life got in my way as it usually does. Better late than later.)

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Next month it will be a year since I started doing digital art seriously - by which I mean focused, daily practice. It means a lot to me - mostly, because after this time I can say out loud: choosing art was the best decision I ever made. Sometimes I regret not starting earlier, but then I realise I am actually very lucky. I got to have a turning point, a big red sign saying: 'You are going nowhere in your life and it is only going to get more miserable'. 

Depressing? Not at all. It just meant that I need to stop walking in circles, making a backup plan for my life and start actually living it.

'Backup plan' is my term for all the things people are 'supposed' to do in their lives. Get an education, a degree, stable job, family. It's all well, while you actually want the packet. It goes wrong, when one day you realise, you don't actually care one bit for any of this, but are afraid or unable to pursue your passion. Poland is a great example of a country, which generates more graduates than most countries on the planet, yet it does not translate to better job opportunities. Well, exact the opposite happens - when everybody has a master degree, that degree is no longer sufficient to get the job. This creates only frustration and emigration, but no changes. The quality of education is sinking, yet everybody still claims that it pays off to have a degree, even if 'just in case'. Well, they say, who knows - maybe some day it will come in handy? Two candidates for the job and you might just need that edge? Sure it is a great backup plan, but if one really wants to make jewelry, why is it exactly, that he/she needs to have a master degree in psychology? 

Giving yourself over to your passion/dream is like stepping to the other side of the road where there are rainbows and unicorns (or darkness and monsters, if you wish) and they suddenly just make sense. All your hard work, patience and even those low-quality-and-full-of-perspective-mistakes pieces add up, sharpening your skills, letting you create better. Now, just as you think there's nothing more to improve, your perception attunes, showing whole new range of issues you can work on. And that can sustain your passion for a limitless amount of time.

Yet we still choose the backup plan. Partially, because it's safe, partially because everybody else does. On the other hand, we like quick, painless solutions, instant access and gratification. Who wants to invest years of constant practice and work, when a facebook page loads in a fraction of a second. But even though this road is long and rocky, it is truly the only way to go. There are no guarantees of money and fame (they make for a really lame life goals) only immense satisfaction derived from doing what you love the most. And you know what: it's also fun.

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Lastly, some free time sketches and works from last week.

Fallout:Lonestar - Casino Nation companion, Molerat

Hello world!

So apparently I am starting a blog.

The idea is few months old and has been in the back of my head since I started posting some longer notes on Tumblr. As much as I love this blogging platform and its community, it wasn't just quite what I needed. My main sketchblog was fine for posting studies and illustrations, yet I wanted to keep it clean form exercises, rough sketches and any redundant text posts.
While that was enough for some time, few conversations with other artists and creative people among my friends, as well as my own thoughts on the topic of art development as a progress, prompted me to write about it. Realising my earlier mistakes and limitations I thought it only fair to share them with others, so they could avoid those traps, that had been restraining me for so long.
Plus I could use the place for a weekly sump-ups, messy sketchdumps, WIPs and practice.

Well then, here it is, my sketchblog-diary hybrid - one I hope to keep alive and tend to as best as I can, so you can see what I do, read what I think and, for those who know me, check if I'm still alive.

For starters, some more recent stuff, saving you the wordy, overstuffed post this time. ;)

Sherf - quick concept for Fallout:Lonestar, a game mod project I am really proud to be a part of. If you are a Fallout fan, make sure to check it out on facebook. If not - check it out anyway. 

Also, if you missed it on facebook, there's a video of  talented Payton Quinn bringing the concept to life in Zbrush.

A birthday gift illustration.

An environment study (Olkhovsky District, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia - check it out on google, it's a beautiful place). Trying different things, piece by piece, finding the best and most efficient way to paint.