MICHAL DZIEKAN

One Thousand Suns

2012-02-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

I painted this piece for my friend Dorota who's figting with MS (multiple sclerosis).

There are limited edition of 100 signed and numbered prints available here - printfolio.pl

You can buy it to help raise funds for extremely expensive treatment that Dorota needs.

You can find more info here

stop ACTA

2012-01-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

say no to ACTA

At Midday

2011-12-20T01:45:00.000-08:00

"She will come for me in the summer

In how many years, I don't know

Will come, stop by the house

Will tell - it's time for you "

- Kazimierz Grzeskowiak, "At Midday"

Południca (in rough translation A Midday Wrath) is character from Slavic mythology.

She was believed to appear as a young women, in summer during the harvest.

When peasants died from heat and exhaustion, it was said that Południca came for them.

Old West

2011-12-13T04:41:00.000-08:00

A small personal character design project,

probably I will add few more characters sometime in the future:

Industrial elfolution

2011-12-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

Toys for us!

Ancient Civilizations

2011-11-17T13:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing changes.

more news and FITC illustration

2011-11-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

First, some great news - During my great Breakthrough trip to NY I got opportunity to join group of fantastic artists represented by Richard Solomon. It's a great honor for me to find myself next to these guys.

and:

Last piece I did during my half year long stay at Ars Thanea studio. This was painted for FITC Amsterdam show, with the tagline "Design, Technology and Cool Shit". Piotr Jaworowski was creative director in this project.

final poster

News

2011-09-16T02:15:00.000-07:00

I'm extremely happy to announce that I was chosen as the winner of Richard Solomon's Breakthrough illustration contest and I'm going to the NYC at the end of October to meet some of the best art directors and artists from the illustration industry:

La Muerta t-shirts

2011-09-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

These are four illustrations I did back in January for guys from La Muerta. The main theme was "Hi, hello I'm lady Death".I believe that those tees will be available for order on the late December. I'm adding some detail and rough previses how would it look when printed. I will update when I got actual photos of ready t-shirts.

The Pool

2011-09-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

If the world was a pool.

some things get bigger, some things get smaller

2011-08-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to break some balls and make a classic chick'n'guns'n'muscles characters piece. Inspired by Heavy Metal, Bisley and Darrow.

Why the rum is always gone?

2011-07-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

Arrrrr

Journey

2011-07-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

I will be talking about progress of this piece on the great gig called Campus Party that will take place in Valencia, Spain this Thursday. Also I will do some life drawing.

Disguise

2011-07-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately in the real world monsters got better disguises.

This is the piece I painted for Designers Against Child Slavery exhibition that
will take place in August in New York.I wanted monsters to look as gross as possible cause they represent rotten souls of people who kidnap and sexually exploit kids.

Another piece for the same exhibition was created in Ars Thanea. I worked with Piotr Jaworowski, Piotr Kolus and Marcin Klicki (I painted background and venom-like hands), more info on this one here.

The Last Job

2011-07-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

This piece started as a robber character concept, but after a while I decided to make a full piece. I wanted to go easy on this one, like B class gangster movies this one is not about content but atmosphere. I wanted to show the heat of the action and also for a long time I wanted to try myself with a moody scene that is taking place on the old, seventies-like street :

hungry viking

2011-06-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Got so little time to work on my personal stuff and unfortunately I can't show anything from my commissioned pieces. Hopefully I found single whiles during last few days and painted this character concept, played a bit with style, pretty like this semi-realistic version. Check this out:

Who keeps them alive?

2011-05-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is the piece I did for Plasticina London for the show called "After the Utopia"

It was the reinterpretation of this Portuguese propaganda poster:

The gig will last till 6th of May 2011 in Acquire Arts Gallery in London where you can buy the piece.

Leniwiec - cd box design

2011-02-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

This is cd box designed and illustrated by me in January for the polish folk-punk band Leniwiec for their new LP entitled "the Road".

Piece made for inside and outside of the box looks like this:

Also I did four illustrations for the booklet, those pieces stories are stories from the lyrics.

There is a story about some polish folks who droved drunk and had a hit and run accident, but that was fine because saint Kristofer, patron of the drivers was there to take care of them. I just saw it like this st. Kristofer is guy for all the wet-cover the tracks work, you can always count on him so just drive.

Another one is made on an idea a bit stolen from Banksy, there was a line in the lyrics of a song that told us about all those wars, famine, floods and other disasters that are shown in every news just like a some tv shows.

Next was about people who's life are only on line life, and the real world just don't need to exist for them, so I adapted this "brain in the jar" thesis and something like this.

Finally the last one was about newborn child in this cruel world, song was very much religious-themed, about catholics who are in the huge majority here in Poland and when parents choose not to baptize the child they become pretty much alienated in this society (thanks god it's slowly changing). I just visualized this a bit like Orwell's 1984 world where all your steps are watched by priests.

some in-booklet characters

whole cd box looks pretty nice, I am very excited how it came out, hope you'll like it too.

PRINTS!!!

2011-02-08T01:48:00.000-08:00

Good news everyone!
From now on you can buy prints of my works via inPRNT:

CLICK

check this out!
Currently there are three pieces: Dragon, Spilled Holidays, and Coral Tree.
If everything will go well I'm sure I will add more and more stuff there.

Book cover "Swieto rewolucji"

2011-01-28T01:56:00.000-08:00

Book cover for "Wydawnictwo Literackie", for the book "Święto Rewolucji" (Celebration of the Revolution(?)) by Michał Protasiuk.

alien

2011-01-20T11:17:00.000-08:00

and now for something completely different, watched all alien movies in a row... just had to do this quick alien inspired piece.

Coral Tree

2011-01-04T06:06:00.000-08:00

Made as a gift, looks nice printed on canvas.

crocodile

2010-12-17T06:55:00.001-08:00

rejected concepts made for Platige Image some time ago

Ruins

2010-12-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

Illustrations made for Platige Image for animated short movie.

Rascal and Shark

2010-10-24T10:07:00.001-07:00

Character designs made for friend Klicek for his imaginary short film.

Mr. Slant

2010-10-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

I've recently came up with idea to design some of the characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld book, so here's the first one - zombie attorney Mr. Slant

and pencil sketch, it was more characteristic but there was a little to much evil in him, and in fact that he's not an antagonist I made him a bit more "normal" fellow

Today on news: Raging Mob!

2010-10-07T07:54:00.001-07:00

And another piece I did recently. It's just some raging mob everyone is familiar with. We got pretty nice raging mobs in Poland, maybe not the best in the world, but still aggression level place them pretty high in rankings.
This piece was a little bit of struggle to draw and took more time than usual.

...some horror vacui and a lot, a lot of lines, look:

also, as usually I did some doodles of characters:

The Great Escape

2010-09-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, here's another piece. The idea was in my head for some time, maybe the reason I painted this is fact that I took credit few years ago and bought this tiny flat in Warsaw where the real estate prices are so extremely lifted up by investors. And sometimes I feel very scared, sometimes I am thinking about the escape... aaand..
here is hero of my illustration - he just couldn't pay credit that he took so many years ago, so he tried to escape with his house, unfortunately he failed.
I wanted to make this UP's spoof for a long time, first I wanted to make old man from my illustration a bit similar to Carl, but then I thought that I love Up and it's characters so much that I couldn't place them in my world of bitter irony and black humor :)

I did few sketches of characters:

and here's the sketch and line work, I made it in ink, then I scanned it and changed it a bit in photoshop,

after scanning I took my lines and used watercolors to paint another traditional version of illustration, I'm not so happy about how it came up It get a bit messy while I was painting it, also I'm too impatient to paint, but I will practice more in future:

more life drawing

2010-09-12T09:28:00.001-07:00

some sketches form our life drawing sessions, I switched pencil to markers, it's a little more problematic medium, but it will be great for practicing line work.

stuff

2010-09-08T13:33:00.001-07:00

so much work in my job... I had no time to work on new illustrations cause I have to earn some money :), yet I try to finish one new illustration which is on my desk for some time, but also I have to work hard on Soulburners music video, already there is done 3/4 of whole material so I think it will be ready soon (video as well as new piece ), wish me luck, for sharpen your appetite here are some screenshots:

and some silly but funny stuff from job:

junk robots concepts done for internet provider ad

this was nice project, I designed and animated this simple info graphic part of canal+ ad

ludziki from Michał Dziekan on Vimeo.

"n" tv spots

2010-08-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

"N" hd television spots from misiek on Vimeo.

This is old stuff, but I've finally managed to upload this spots.

I was responsible for composition and AE vfx. Spots was designed and art directed by Ars Thanea, Platige Image lead artist was Marcin Wasko. Originally music was written by Adam Skorupa, but I montaged this spots with song by ETHS.

model sessions from july

2010-07-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

dump of sketches made during our model sessions, 5 to 20 minutes drawings.

( Jeśli ktoś z warszawy zagląda na tego bloga i ma ochotę porysować, niech się odezwie na maila, mamy wolne miejsca. )

bon appetite! (with process)

2010-07-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

I've just finished this illustration, it's kind of funny metaphor about how some jobs turn to be sometimes. As I wrote earlier I will share some process and here it is:

first some doodles

I didn't make final sketch in pencil, cause this time I wanted to work mostly digital, so I made this fast sketch in photoshop, it's a bit chaotic, but as it was my personal work there was no need to show it to anybody so for me it worked fine:

Then all the line work which I always enjoy:

zombie head changed a bit during line work:

Then goes flat colors, but I unfortunately overwrote the file with it, so I will enrich process of this faze during next personal work. After flat colors there are few steps of painting, then some postpro, tweaking the colors and stuff.
And after that the final piece emerges :) !

doodles behind illustrations

2010-07-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

I scanned some things I was doodling before making some of latest illustrations, from now on I will try to show my process, how images are created and how the concept is developed. It will be also great motivation for me to draw more and more... anyway, there is some good news - sessions with model in platige are back, soon, I hope, I will show some sketches

experiment

2010-07-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

It started as a sketch, then pencil drawing, then I decided to ink it, then I got some different pens so I started to coloring it up, then I used some much watered acrylics due to the lack of watercolors, then some ink again, than scanning, than a little bit of photoshop and ...it's weird piece.

haters propaganda pt. 2

2010-07-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

I got some feedback from friends, so I decided to change a little this piece. First of all image is flipped as the original sketch, then the light from left is stronger, I think there is more space now, also I changed colors a little. This is just some small changes, there is still things that could be corrected but it's my personal work and I won't work on this like forever :)

I can advice you this: if you have time, your deadlines are not so short, and if you think that your image is so great and finished, just make a day off, try to work on something else, go outside, draw some people, whatever, then after the break you'll have some fresh view on your work, maybe you could make it even better.
Also great thing is to show your work to friends who do similar stuff, you probably lost some distance to your work and they can give you some great, fresh feedback and critique.

haters propaganda

2010-07-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

eeech... those haters have to be so loud....

I did sketch for this one ( and not only for this one, I am always doing analog doodles and sketches before doing illustration ), next time I'll put some doodles also. On this sketch you can see picture's evolution, how I changed arrangement of arms ( you can better feel movement) legs (I lost some dynamics but I think characters corresponds better, yea I still got doubts but it works well enough for me).

Also I unblocked comments, so feel free to crit these pieces!
regards

summer time !

2010-07-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

happy summer holidays...

Hansel and Gretel

2010-06-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

A little bit modernized version of Hansel and Gretel. Bon appetit!

Road rage made in Poland

2010-06-11T05:23:00.000-07:00

Try to drive from any major city to Warsaw.

Picture that: in Poland you overcome 400km long route in 6 to 8 hours, so 50km/h is avarge speed of driving here...
.
[ fact: there is 900km of highways in Poland (322 575 square kilometers) for example Czech republic (78 866 square kilometers) now got 690km of highways... just do the math... ]

edit:
some progress I made but forgot to upload earlier

down down down

2010-06-02T06:48:00.001-07:00

Always happy for themselfs, proud that they robbed society, even going down they will say that everything is ok and there was no fault in their actions, self-satisfied mad men who will lead countries to economical destruction just to fill their's already stuffed pockets. I just can't understand what drives people to be so bad, so greedy. Can't they see this self-destructive pattern leads only one way - down, dragging us all with them.

inspired by Fast Forward song "at the peak"

and some details:

tradiotional stuff 2

2010-05-25T03:59:00.001-07:00

there were good times in platige when we hired this model and once a week were trying not to forget how to draw, damn, it was so nice to rest from this lame ads, I don't know how but somehow this idea died, I think we must reanimate it...

and some recent portraits, just tryin to recall how to draw before MADE:

traditional stuff 1

2010-05-25T03:55:00.000-07:00

paintings I did time ago, acrylics and ink on canvas:

just some recent sketching

2010-05-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

grrrrrrrrr

2010-05-19T02:06:00.000-07:00

and finished version

grrrrrr

2010-05-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

supercool sneak peak

2010-05-11T02:21:00.000-07:00

some moodboard's and concepts made for new independent music video we are currently working on with Krzysiek 'Kengi' Kamrowski, Rafał Sadowy and Marzena Dutkiewicz, music video for Soulburners band, freakin' Supercool :) upcoming at the end of summer... I hope...

energocirculation won silver...

2010-04-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

...on Polish Ad Festival (KTR), nice.
--> CLIP <--

on photo

2010-04-16T04:09:00.001-07:00

I saw somewhere this kind of illustration painted on photo and I had to try it myself...

samurai

2010-03-23T02:40:00.001-07:00

harmony, ps samurai doodle

procedural drawing #2

2010-03-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

harmony doodling based on photo, final touch in ps as always

fatso

2010-03-19T05:47:00.001-07:00

procedural drawing #1

2010-03-18T04:09:00.001-07:00

some doodeling made in this great procedural drawing tool
and a bit of photoshop

dragon

2010-03-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

this chinese dragon at first had to be concept for some ad, but it wasn't liked so I repainted it as this illustraiton

centimeters above the ground

2010-03-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

'centymetry od ziemi uniesiony jak anioł..'
illustration inspired by track "spij spokojnie" from new OSTR cd

2010's

2010-01-12T03:18:00.000-08:00

...

2010-01-05T03:42:00.001-08:00

illustration for "Przekrój"

2009-12-22T04:16:00.001-08:00

I've recently done this illustriation for "Przekrój" magazine, article theme was "Church in the net"

...

2009-12-17T16:34:00.001-08:00

Can't see shit captain!

2009-12-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

a little killzone style can't hurt anybody....

EDP - energy efficency ads

2009-12-10T05:49:00.000-08:00

And this is my debuit as a commercial director and lead, made for portugese part of Euro RSCG agency. I like it very much:

credits:
production: Kasia Jarzyna
animation: Marcin Waśko
rendering: Marcin Waśko, Piotrek Suchodolski, Marcin Klicki
modeling: Marcin Klicki, Piotrek Suchodolski,
rigging: Bartek Opatowiecki
simulation: Piotrek Suchodolski
I was lead, designer, director and animator.

l.u.c - about energocirculation

2009-12-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

I'm really proud of this music video for L.U.C, made between january and june 2009, It won for me Grand Prix for the best polish music video on 18.YACH festival.

My directing debuit, I love it as if it's my firstborn... :)

c'mon and go deeper into vimeo, there is HD version to download:

director/design/animation - Michał Dziekan
animation - Grzesiek Paluch

mr. nice

2009-12-08T02:59:00.001-08:00

scary kids

2009-12-08T02:54:00.000-08:00

character concepts for "Strasze dzieci" doll spectacle in Gdynia music theatre

comic book #1

2009-12-08T02:46:00.000-08:00

frames from comic book made for Warsaw Uprising Museum contest, whole work can be found here: http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7412/cialakomix.jpg (it's in polish)

and non-comic but similar stuff from year ago:

few cheerful characters

2009-12-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

olaf

2009-12-08T02:39:00.000-08:00

aaaarghhhh

2009-12-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Just set up this blog, there are few older works of mine that I wish to share here, before I'll start to post most recent stuff.

picture from promo calendar of Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw

this one is from smirnoff ad that never came to life:

and oldest one