Beside the projects in all other tabs, I often also get involved in other, sometimes crazy initiatives that do not fit into these categories. I love to explore worlds – the physical one we live in, as well as the cinematic or digital ones, but also other, less conventional worlds born of passion and imagination. Therefore, I try to put my foot in the door of any place where new challenges, colorful characters and exciting adventures might await me.
While still in junior high school, I found myself among the enthusiasts of miniature wargaming. And although my passion for battling has fizzled out some time ago, it was these games that instilled in me love for miniature painting and modeling. Over time, it was the creation of possibly most spectacular and original models that became more important to me than these (for my taste) too time-consuming and insufficiently satisfying games themselves.
Even now, when I don't play wargames anymore, I still use exactly the same skills in occasionally painting figurines for board games and in a tradition of painting overly ambitious Easter (although often not very "Eastery") eggs.
If you click on the thumbnails, you can see some of the minis, but a more complete gallery of my models can be viewed on this portal. The ability to paint and model – as I mentioned above – gave me a non-standard view on creating props, costumes and – more generally – materializing fantastical ideas.
I’ve never been particularly into acting as such or LARP. But the idea of bringing crazy characters (also from movies or games) to life excites me. Above all
I perceive it as an ambitious, creative challenge: how one can create the most spectacular (and in the case of adaptation faithful) representations of fantastic characters with the possibly most spare resources and work? For this reason, I have always loved Halloween parties, where
I embodied for example Doctor Who, Edward Scissorhands or – recently – Victor Frankenstein.
I have assembled and crafted each outfit at home from what
I was able to easily get or create manually.
I have also used these skills and passion for creative modeling (more about it below) in my film projects, often creating complicated props from scratch. This was the case with the making of the film Out of Sight, but it was Wyjdzie
w Graniu that recently gave me most opportunities to experiment with quick, low budget, but precise costumes and builds for particular films.
I owe my parents many things – often more and sometimes less positive. For years one of the good parts has been the encouragement and possibility to travel. As early as I was a child and then as a teenager, I had the opportunity to visit Spain, Egypt and Turkey to name a few. On many occasions I have traveled to sunny Croatia, visited my family in Germany or enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere of Austria.
In my voyages, I have always been interested in meeting people, discovering unique places and local culture. I never cared much for luxury nor stationary rest. With age, this attitude only intensified, so when I got the opportunity to work in the United States, I immediately started planning the most ambitious and wild journey, during which I would be able to experience as much of it as possible.
Later, with the same attitude, I set off on an equally wild road trip around Europe, visiting Switzerland, Monaco, but most of all, exploring the southern France and Italy, which is especially close to my heart. Italy, to which I have returned many times over the years due to the amazing cuisine, variety of landscapes, as well as positive, sun-energized people!
In my life I owe a lot to music. It was largely because of it that I got to know and found a common language with my long-term partner. Back then, she was the drummer of
a crazy surf-rock band. They made great music, and I tried my best to support her physically and mentally.
But before that, music influenced me a lot. When I went to an AC / DC concert as a young teenager, I felt the freedom and power of raw rock music for the first time! Later, over the years, I have been searching for the most interesting sounds, preparing my own compilations and finding
a thread of understanding with various artists. I held on longer to the rock hippie culture that developed mainly in 60s California. These sounds told me a story about the American counterculture of that time, and philosophically intrigued me with the concept of pacifism and the real challenges of its implementation.
I have also tried my hand at playing a bass guitar. Inspired by some popular garage rock duos, I have been strumming with my much more talented partner. In this field, I lacked some creative force, determination and I have ultimately found out that I am much better at creating images, games and writing. But music still plays a very important role in my life, and I often use the knowledge I have gathered over the years. In everything one can see the importance of the rhythm, pace and an ability to surprise the audience with an unexpected variation of a given motif.
Over the years, I have also been involved
in a number of other "worlds" and accumulated knowledge about things
(at least superficially) completely
unrelated to these projects. For several
years, I regularly trained billiards
under the supervision of a professional trainer, at the university, also under
the supervision of a trainer,
I practiced climbing. To this day
I make an effort to visit a climbing
gym regularly. I love cars, as much
as I love recreational cycling. From
an early age, I had also loved skiing
– maybe even too much which
ended in damaging my knee. But
fortunately, thanks to good care,
I regained practically full fitness in it.
I feel good in “foreign territory”
and I quickly learn about things
that might have been completely
strange to me yesterday. I am
not terrified by the mix of fear
and excitement that accompanies
the unknown and this feeling
often is a sign for me that I am
going in the right direction.
