Tomasz,

Your work is inspiring and your attitude towards the community is phenomenal. Thank you for taking the time to share some of your thoughts with us:

0) Tell us a bit about yourself, where do you come from, how did you decide to become an artist and what led you to where you are?

- First: I love the number ZERO question… :) Fantastic. :) Thank you Fede for having me here. I was born and raised in Poland, moved to the US in 2001 just for "a year or so" to check things out, learn English, see the Grand Canyon... and here I am… 9 years later, married, full of ideas, about to start my own company, busy… happy as never before in my life. A long time ago, just for a brief moment in my life, I considered becoming an artist - my parents quickly kicked this idea out of my head… :) Paint, brushes, canvas, frames and tons of glass (I loved to paint on glass for some reason). This whole "artistic way of life" was too messy for them. Drama. Originally, my plan was to become a Navigation Officer, but things took a bit of a different turn. I got into teaching, traditional advertising… publishing… and a dream of becoming a Navigator faded away. It was not the easiest thing on the planet to switch my mind from navigation to design, but somehow I managed. Since the elementary school, I would always draw and paint all sorts of stuff, and in a twisted way, I'm going back to my roots now.  I never thought that I’d design movie posters...not to mention Hollywood… :) Since the beginning, I have been very persistent with quality of my work, with approach, details and final goal of whatever I do. I have kind of "a samurai" approach to my job and many things in life… or maybe it is just OCD? Who knows…? :)

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Character art

Has always been an area of 3D I have never touched on much. Maybe it goes back to doing a negative scale in an early Maya tutorial where things all went wrong for me. But one young man who is doing it right is Colin Thomas of Insomniac Games. I first noticed Colin's work as I walked through the studio of Insomniac Games in Burbank, CA and saw a flesh colored figure sculpture. It is not uncommon to see toys and unusual statues around a game studio, but this one was of a mutated zombie creature. It stopped me in my tracks and I struck up a conversation with Colin. No spoiler alerts here, the zombie has nothing to do with any of Insomniac's unannounced titles. Colin was studying with the legendary Jordu Schell and this is where he created this amazing sculpture.. Colin has the pleasure of being my first LA3D interview, here it goes.

Tell me about yourself?

Hi, my name is Colin Thomas Jr. character artist at Insomniac Games in

Burbank, California. I'm 23 years old and I’m originally from Montego Bay, Jamaica. As a child I always gravitated to building things with my hands. I remember vividly digging for clay and filling buckets just to go sit and sculpt. I would sculpt all sorts of things from animals to guns in which my cousins and I would later rig with elastic bands and used to play gun war (a form of cops and robbers). For me, growing up in Jamaica without games and such allowed for a rich imagination as I would explore and encounter cool animals and insects. At the time I just loved getting dirty with clay and making things, and although my love for sculpting and creating with clay has expanded to sculpting digitally, for as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be an artist of some sort. What I didn’t know at the time was how much my childhood experiences and explorations would later dictate what I’ve came to be so passionate about.

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