Meet a Space Artist: Ep. 02 -- GabrielGajdos

Sep 22, 201714 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Sep 22, 2017

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Hello again, and welcome back to Meet a Space Artist -- an artist interview series.

In my weekly space art feature, I showcase a lot of different peoples' work. However, some artists come up again and again in my journals -- the drama and quality of their artwork draws me back every time. You can imagine how thrilled I am, then, when one of those artists agrees to an interview! Please welcome this week GabrielGajdos, a digital arts student and photographer from Slovakia (check out his FB page here).

"Anomaly"

1. Who are you? Tell us a little about yourself.

Well hello there, my name is Gabriel Gajdoš, I'm 26 and I work as a programmer in Slovakia. As you would suspect space art is probably my main hobby, what you wouldn't suspect is that it is main hobby along with bodybuilding. I've trained for 5-6 years maybe, but as I said its just hobby, so I am not competing or anything. Oh yeah, and I take some photos from time to time.

2. Why space art?

I had a friend in high school who did space art, I found it interesting and I wanted to know how it's made. Also I am a sci-fi fan and I drew with pencil a lot, so I guess it was just a natural development. I checked some tutorials, did a couple of primitive space art I was so proud of back then and I found it to be so much fun it stuck with me

3. Digital or Traditional?

Just digital.

4. Tools of the Trade?

99% of the time I use Photoshop. I use 3Ds Max on occasion, mostly when I want to do a planet with rings from a difficult angle and I want to be sure the perspective and everything is right. I use available textures and stocks from all over the internet. As for the brushes I use the ones from Dan Luvisi - danluvisiart.deviantart.com/ar…

5. Walk us through your process, from concept to finished piece

I am afraid the process is different for each piece. Sometimes I have a clear vision of a finished piece sometimes I just improvise. It also depends on a type of picture, whether its nebula, classic space art or terra-space. Sometimes I mostly just paint, sometimes I use stocks and textures a lot, sometimes I combine the two, so its very hard to generalize. But I realized I have 2 process pictures on my Facebook page so I will include them:

13119999 990078764433229 1694089990500856306 O by GabrielGajdos

13411849 1016523635122075 7277377778031247831 O by GabrielGajdos

"Star-dancers Epoch" and "Molran"

6. Any upcoming projects you are excited about?

Recently I do book covers for Andrew Hindle. We started to work quite a while ago and we work together until now, which I am very happy about because it means he likes what I do. I also like what he does, he has very original ideas and every cover is a challenge. Its hard, but also fun to do. Currently he works on a series of 4 books. As for covers we want to create one big nebula split into 4 parts, so when you place each book next to each other you will get one big nebula scene. I hope it will come out nicely.

7. How many book covers have you done for Andrew Hindle so far?
I've done 9 cover for Andrew so far and luckily we are not done yet. As I mentioned we are currently working on a 4 part story and a new trilogy. The man is a creative beast

Several book covers for Andrew Hindle: "Deadshepherd", "Damorak" and "Human"

8. I notice that skulls feature a lot in your art. Is there a reason for that?

I must say you have a very observant eyes. The 'Ogre', however, was a concept for 'Bonshoon'; we went for a different style in the end, but I liked the concept so I decided to finish it and publish as a standalone picture. There is also a skull in 'Molran', yes.

As for 'Human' it is the eighth and the last part of the saga. Andrew wanted to have some sort of "packed" cover: in other words, to bring every previous cover together. Something like The Lord of the Rings poster - images-na.ssl-images-amazon.co… or the Star Wars poster - a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/upl… ... the thing is you can do this with people and objects easily, since you can cut them out, place them together in a different pose so the whole picture works, but how can you do that with entire scenes? It was a pain in the ass, but then I realized how about I just place one cover on top of each other and make all of them transparent? I tried it out, erased overcrowded parts and realized it looks all right. Also it has some sort of a reward element, since readers may try to prove themselves if they can distinguish every single cover

9. What is the hardest part about what you do? (the gotchas)

It might sound weird, but I always had troubles with finding a solid title for a picture. In the very beginning I just picked a latin dictionary and found a random word that sounds cool. Thats also a reason why I try to make every picture original. I try not to make just a random space art stuff, because its very hard to make up a title for it

10. What is the best, or most enjoyable, part about making space art?

It's hard to say, I don't think there is one thing I enjoy the most. It comes as a package, from visualisation, creating the picture and receiving response. Perhaps the most satisfying thing is when the people like it and also I am satisfied with the result, but this happens very rarely. You know I am very nitpicky and subjective when it comes to my stuff.

11. What areas are you still trying to improve?

I suck at painting, so this is the area that I would really love to improve, but I am quite lazy and often when I start to paint something I just close it after a first hour because I cannot look at it

12. Any tips for new space artists?

Just practice. Also I was staring at different pictures and I was trying to visualize the making process, so I could better understand how to make it. Then I wanted to try that myself, sometimes I even find some other way of doing things, this is very good feeling

13. Have you done any tutorials, on site or off?

Haven't done any, sorry.

14. Which of your works are you most proud of?

Its probably the 'Cor'. This is my first Daily Deviation, its also my most faved pic. But not just because of that, I think it was my first milestone when it comes to approach and technique, I also learned a lot during making this one. Another I am quite proud of are 'Acheron', 'Talos', 'Damorak', 'Stars-Dancers Epoch' and 'Anomaly'.

"Cor", "Talos", and "Acheron"

15. Which other space artists inspire you?

There is one I admire above everyone else and its the father of space art: Greg Martin. His works are simple, but brilliant, with amazing feeling, composition and technique. He was the inspiration when I started and he is the inspiration now.

I will mention a couple of other that were the biggest influence when I started to do space art:

Jeff Michelmann