Industrial design was my specialty in an academy. I used to come back to that roots several times in my career to work on certain projects, but it never became mainstream. I have some concepts to develop and maybe will publish them some day.

Art direction for me is just the way of thinking about big projects where a lot of people need to be guided instead of one man's tools. It correlates pretty much with all that problem solving stuff i was talking about earlier.

Digital art is a more personal matter. I do it for fun. I was always sketching something from the moment i can remember myself in the childhood. There was a lot of drawing and painting in the academy. And i was messing with the computers since early 90's. 3D and stuff. That explains why it's painting and why it's digital. Again, i see it as a
great advantage to have all those different skills and be able to incorporate them in one piece, so the end result benefits greatly. Today this is my main focus, since i have realized i love to do it the most.

How do you start when a project is given to you? Can you tell us the process you'll go through?

At first i try to make the client look at the task again more carefully. It seems to be a little arrogant, but there are always some problems pop up at the later stages, which originates from a poorly formulated task. I do not proceed to making something until i'm not sure that the client and i understand certain things the same way.

The following process depends on what genre and technique i am dealing with and it may differ greatly. I intentionally try not to go the same way every time, and invent slight deviations, which make it more like
a quest than just a routine. It's a good way to gain experience quickly and to develop a habit to constantly pick up more appropriate tools and methods.

For instance, many digital artists have their personal brush sets they feel comfortable with. So am i, but it's not the same old set every time, it changes and evolves constantly. Sometimes i finish the piece with completely different brush set than it was when i have started that same piece. And i never go back to the previous one. There will be another set of futuristic illustrations coming soon, and when it was finished i had noticed that some of it was made using complex photo collage technique and others were just painted with a brush. While working i didn't even noticed that. It was quite a job to convince the client that it is not ruining entire project in terms of
style and integrity.