Rafal Szlapa is a professional storyboard artist who does
illustrations, book covers and general art by commission. He’s
damned good, you could do a lot worse than hiring him if there’s anything you want doing. The site displays samples of previous work that he’s done, unfortunately it’s currently only available in Polish, but good artwork is universal right? And the owner’s English is fantastic, to a far better
standard than many born and raised citizens of Britain, particularly members of the Burberry brigade and various other illiterate factions.
I’m not sure exactly what it is that I like about his style, it’s different from any of the standard forms I’ve come across but not in a really twisted, distorted way. His pictures have a funny kind of distance to them, they seem removed from the normal world but not any less real for it. It’s like the opposite of seeing something through a window, everything’s in a sharper focus, more definite. How the world would be if all the softness and ambiguity was taken out of it. His mastery of colour and shape is obvious, making his work surreal and eye catching, a bit like the covers of the Sandman comics, only developed a few steps further.
As I said earlier, he’s a heck of a good artist. He’s got the imagination and the ability to produce some really special stuff, and it’s nothing short of a tragedy that he’s had to spend so much of his time working on commercials and boring high-paying low-satisfaction jobs just to make ends meet. C’mon, give the guy something interesting to do, trading cards, posters, book
illustrations/covers, comics, album covers, website art, personal gifts, Jesus, there’s enough of a shortage of good artists without letting people like this go to waste. Somebody hire him goddamnit.