Interview with Lukasz Szeflinski
Hi could you tell us a bit about yourself?
 I'm from Poland but currently I work in the architectural visualization company Progressive Technologies in Cyprus. I have a MA degree in architecture but I have always been keen on CG.
What first got you started in 3D and 2D, are you self taught or taken some training?
When I was young I loved comic books. Initially, I was drawing characters from them but soon I began to create my own comics. As far as I remember I was drawing whenever I had some time. After a period of fascination with computer games and comics I was looking for tools that would replace my pencil and a sheet of paper. This is how I found 3D studio and Photoshop, and my new passion: CG.
There are very few artists which are good in 3D and 2D both, what is the secret behind this?
I think the secret lies in the traditional art background. I'm an architect and during my studies I had traditional drawing, painting and sculpting lessons. If you have this knowledge it is only a matter of choosing the right tool to use it.
What you think when users said, this is just a tracing of an image about your critically acclaimed work “Yuka” in Photoshop?
I respect all opinions and comments concerning my work because each critical voice can teach you something. However, I devoted 50 hours to the making of Yuka and I can assure you that having a real photo as a point of reference can obviously make your work easier in a sense but it is not simply the tracing of an image. So for those who say that it is nor a real work to draw something in Photoshop using a real photo I just reply “Try and then say it again”. /Anyway, for those who have any doubts I can actually draw I recommend a section devoted to traditional drawing that you can find on my web site/
If you could invent your dream job, where would you work & what would be your job title?
Great question :). My dream job would be in Poland (where I was born) and I would like to work on projects like those done by e.g. Blur studio. I would like to do different things so that I would not get bored. Basically, it would be lighting, composition, matte painting, modeling. You can call me Jack of all trades but I really enjoy learning new things and I'm always curious how things work in cg world.
However, the most important thing is that in my dream job there would not be crazy hours. During my short 2 years of experience in cg I can only tell that there is nothing worse for an artist than working overtime because then you're burning out and it's bad. Right now I have great job and after work I have a lot of spare time to develop my passion and learn new things.
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