Interview Slawek Fedorczuk

Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist about what keeps him motivated and the advantages of using physical sketchbooks

EXPLORING “This scene took so many attempts and I needed multiple sketches to get the readability, despite all of the busy details. It was a tough piece to do, but I’m glad I went through all the sketching early!”

Never think it’s too late to follow your passions. Just look at Slawek Fedorczuk, who has created art for Blur Studio, LINE, Google and Valve to name but a few. He may be working for high-profile clients now, but even Slawek was worried he’d left it too late to break into the industry. We caught up with him to hear how he learned the skills, why he loves details, and what the online future looks like for creatives.

Tell us a little about your background as an artist. How did you get started and what has your career been like so far?

I started learning art seriously when I was 18. It might sound funny today, but at the time I felt really behind. Seeing people my age already drawing regularly since they were children, attending art colleges and joining fine art academies, I felt like I was too late to the party.

Because of that, I had a certain level of dedication to learning; I spent almost every weekend drawing. Not a healthy lifestyle if you think about being social! However, that practice and independent learning helped me get into 3D animation school, which was a fantastic experience, especially 13 years ago when places were rare.

After school, I got my first job in a local game studio. I worked in-house for a couple of years, but I was well aware that there were no major studios in my area. Because of that, I asked if I could work part-time, dedicating the rest of the time to practice and learning. Once again, that discipline and taking the time to learn slower started to show results: I began to get noticed by studios I admired and they offered me freelance work. I continue to do this today while teaching and mentoring other artists.

“Practice and independent learning helped me get into 3D animation school, which was a fantastic experience ”

VILLAGE “I had great fun painting this, trying to make a winter snowy scene warm, welcoming and cosy.”

EARLY SPRING “Keeping a sketchbook around to write and scribble ideas is super helpful. Here I created an entire list of ideas for some characters and individual buildings.”

MOMOTARO “This is quite an old piece, but I remember learning a lot doing it, especially about playing with mood and depth.”