Tomasz Jedruszek is a Polish artist who creates some of the most stunning and beautiful CG works. His designs have been featured in several noteworthy publications. Tomasz was born 1977, educated in math and physics, and has a masters degree in Engineering & Architecture. Since 1999 he has worked as a freelance digital artist.

Where were you born, where do you live now, any other background info?

I was born in very small town in Poland 32 years ago. I spend most of my life at Silesia area where I finished my studies of Architecture. A few years ago I moved down the map to the south of Poland to a place named Bochnia, near Cracow. Our plans are to continue towards the south soon. Nine years ago, during my studies, I realized I needed grow up and take care of my adult life by myself. One thing I discovered I was able to do at that time was drawing. I was quite desperate about making a living from it, but soon realized how many people are willing to pay good money for my work. Since then I am working as a freelance artist. I think that was the best choice I ever made.

How would you describe your work?

It is flexible, both about time and earnings. I am my own boss and deal with my time according to my current needs which is great. I create things from scratch, directly from my imagination which is even more exciting.

What processes and techniques do you use to create your work?

I use Photoshop on a pretty old computer and an even older wacom tablet. Recently I have been spending a lot of time with my son and have gotten back to pencil hand drawings again to make some pre sketches. I like it more than sketching digitally which I normally do for work related projects because it is faster and there are tight deadlines.

How did you get started?

With lot of pain. I started by trying to copy some comics, years of hard work at the desk with pencil and lot of wasted paper. After that it started to look like someting worth  showing publishers. My first job was near my university. A polish RPG games publisher gave me a chance and later helped me find connections abroad such as in Spain, Great Britain and even the US. I then began working for myself and have become recognizable on the market; couple successes and here we go!

Any notable accomplishments?

Many, but recently I most happy with my contract with Wizards of the Coast and Sony Online Entertainment and of course my Digital Painting award on latest CGSociety “Steam Punk ” Challenge.

Where can we find more info and keep up with your work?

Best source for all updates would be my site www.morano.pl. You can also visit my secondary portfolios:
http://morano.cgsociety.org/gallery http://morano.cghub.com/images http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com/community.vm

And of course my Imagekind galleries: http://morano.imagekind.com

What artists inspire you?

That’s a very long list! Actually, I’m still adding new names to it all the time. Jjust to name a few from my top 100: Gierymski, Malczewski, Rosinski, Manara, Gimenez, Brom, Mullins, etc. etc.

Want to win your favorite Imagekind print for free?

That’s right, it’s free print Friday! and we’re giving one lucky person the chance to win a free Imagekind print of their choice. Best of all, it’s beyond simple! Just check out our Facebook page and post the URL of your favorite image from Imagekind in the comment section below the announcement.

Hurry, cause it all ends at 5pm PST!

Ok, stop reading, go post your favorite image for the chance to win!

Enter here.

Josh Heilaman is  a self taught visual and sound artist. He was born and raised in Oklahoma, now lives in Texas. Most of his work is in acrylic painting and musical form. He is also very fond of drawing, sculpting and video. Though he generally focuses on character based work, he also dabbles with landscapes and abstract pieces as well. Josh’s work has been featured in numerous publications and shows all over America.

To view more of my Josh Heilman’s art work, check his personal website: www.friskeemedia.com/joshheilaman

To hear some of his music, check out this site.

Where were you born, where do you live, any other background info?

I was born in Oklahoma City, OK. Most of my life has been here in Oklahoma, I moved to Texas for a few years as well. After traveling across the U.S. looking for a good place to live, I have found myself in Oklahoma again. I’ve grown to appreciate many things about my hometown that I overlooked for a while. Now that I am “back home”, I have decided to continue my involvement with the arts and focus on personal and community development.

How would you describe your work?

Over the years, I have watched my work evolve. I started creating at a very early age, mainly pencil drawings of characters and landscapes. By the time I became a teenager, my interests shifted to painting, sculpting and digital mediums. I’ve spent considerable time with most common mediums since then. Somehow, my work has evolved beyond anything I thought it would but still remains as simplistic as the early days of drawing “make-believe” characters. The focal point of my creations has always been based in story telling and character development. I enjoy bringing the believable to the make-believe in all of my work.

What processes and techniques do you use to create your work?

When creating, I typically don’t have any sort of plan in the beginning stages. Most of the time, I begin by making textures and abstract color schemes. These textures will “tell me” what to paint or draw. The process is similar to cloud watching or participating in an ink blot test. Sometimes it takes some time to pull something tangible out of abstraction, but other times it happens very quickly. For those reasons, I typically will work on 10 to 20 pieces at a time. My favorite approach is to squeeze out a big blob of one color and work it into all the pieces in varying degrees. In the end, the result is a very rich and prismatic collection of paintings. The main mentality, that I embrace while creating, is that every color exists in everything all of the time; and I should emulate that in my artwork.

What is your style for creating?

I’ve never paid close attention to style with my work. I find that it’s best to just go with what occurs naturally. Perhaps, that is my style.

Are you a full time artist?

Yes, I am a full time artist. Most of my income stems from commission work, gallery shows and graphic design jobs.

Imagekind artist and all around social media connoisseur Natasha Wescoat was in Seattle over the weekend for the Create Live Seattle event held at Bedlam Coffee. Local artist David Hoang, also an Imagekind artist (!) participated in the event as well. Artists from around the area were invited to participate by working on pieces along side Natasha and David. Create Live is all about merging art and social media and connecting artists together from all corners of the world. It was  great event and glad we could participate.

The coffee shop was like a lions den of creativity. Artists were drawing, painting, sketching on paper and digitally. While everyone was creating, Natasha and David would tag team on the video chat and connect via Twitter with viewers around the country.

After the event Natasha and David stopped by the Imagekind office and were cool enough to answer a couple of questions. We even had them tag up one of our book cases!

Check out Natasha’s Flickr stream to see photos of the event. Also, if your curious at all what our office looks like on a Sunday afternoon, check out the tour I gave them. Don’t laugh at my awkwardness.

Creating polar (stereographic) panoramics is much easier than I initially thought. Or at least learning some of the basic tricks to produce the effect are not as technical as the final result make it seem. In other words, the captivating effect needed to create polar panoramic photography (or “little planets” as they are endearingly termed) is much easier than it looks.

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to the basics on how to create polar panoramic images. You can use your own photograph, or grab one with a creative commons license. I found this one on Flickr.

1. Select a panoramic landscape photograph to manipulate. Remember, you can always crop your photo to get a landscape look. That’s what I did with this example. Quick tip: though a 360 degree landscape works best, as long as the image is in at least a 1:2 aspect ratio, you should be fine.

2. Square your photograph by changing the dimensions to the largest side. In Photoshop, go to Image > Image Size and increase the height to match the width. Quick tip: make sure the Constrain Proportions box is unchecked.

3. Rotate the entire image by 180 degrees. In Photoshop, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 180

4. Create the planet. In Photoshop, go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates. Quick tip: make sure you select Rectangular to Polar though the other option provides quite an interesting effect as well.

Some additional tips:

1. To avoid off-kilter landscapes when polarized, you’ll want to make sure the landscape is parallel before changing it to a square. You can straighten and crop with the crop tool by bringing the cursor just outside the crop box to rotate
2. Images that are near identical on either end of the landscape work the best. Images that are not similar will look disjunctioned
3. Crop out any bold lines on either end of the landscape or you’ll notice a large line when you polarize
4. You should definitely feel free to rotate the image once you’ve created your planet. That way you can choose what is on top of the planet.
5. You can find additional tips here