- UP & COMING: -Lazur / Nah Color / TRSI
by Mount and Disty


After showing his talent in various graphics competition the
Polish TRSI-artist Lazur proved a big talent with his high quality
slideshow, SUN, in the beginning of 1995. And he is already planning
a sequal in the near future.

Tomasz Pietek is the civil name for the man who in front of
his computer turns into Lazur when grabbing the magic pixel pen.
He started his scene carreer in Union and later TPDL. Then joined
TRSI Poland but from the summer is in the newformed Nah-Kolor,
a division of TRSI.

Polish graphicians always had a very bad reputation because
of the low quality. Only the at the moment rather inactive Seq,
Animal and now Lazur have been able to gain international respect.
One of the reasons could be drawing technique. That is a place where
Lazur is tending to go the ways of succesful artists in western Europe.
But the secret is that he doesn't have any specific technique.

"I don't want to describe my drawing technics here, because it's
different for every picture. I don't draw my pictures pixel by pixel.
I often use transparent, smooth and dither functions from Brilliance v2.0."

Lazur mostly paints fullscreen pictures as he hates making logos.
He prefers high resolution and many colours too so he can feel free to
be creative. But the more pixels to set, the more time it takes to finish
a picture.

"Drawing pictures such as 'Marysia' or 'Stary buk' took me 2 weeks.
For example TV set from SUN took me just one day. Everything depends on
resolution, quantity of colors and that what are you drawing."

Paint or die...

'Drawing maniac' is a word you can't help saying when hearing how
much time he spends on improving his skill and create impressive
graphics.

"I better describe my day. I wake up in the morning and go to
school till 14:00 or 15:00. When I come back, I sit down in front
of my Amiga, and I turn it off at 22-23. If I eat something during
this time I can call myself lucky (this is main reason behind my
thin body). Generally, all that time I spend drawing. Weekends
I spend with Amiga all days long. In 1994 year I drew 23 fullscreen
AGA pictures, a lot of logos, and other stuff. This spring I drew
10 fullscreen pictures  and a little above 10 logos. Speaking about
speed - I don't know if I'm drawing fast... I'm just drawing, that's all."

Redrawing pictures is OK

After a hot discussion in the last couple of years about
copying motifs it has cooled a bit down again lately. Lazur's opinion
is straight and honest when asked whether he copies his motifs.

"Ofcourse I do, because almost all famous ones copy motifs too...
Seriously, in my opinion coping motives is a good lesson because you
can learn how to draw correctly. For example: when a graphician-beginner
will try to paint an eye just from imagination (no redrawing), he don't
learn it - even if he'll try for 5 years. You just have to redraw
for example 2 pictures, and you'll have the knowledge how an eye schould
look like. Anyway, that's the way I have learned. Off course a lot
of my pictures are self created like "Digest life" or "UFO" from
the slideshow SUN."

When the light ofthe SUN stroke

The slideshow SUN was supposed to be ready around
autumn '94 but the relase date was moved many times because of
coder troubles. Finally after joining TRSI the promised slideshow
was released.

"Design was done in the easy way for every (even stupid) coder",
Lazur admits but adds:
"That was just because I wanted it to be released as fast as
possible. Finally, rest of the graphics where choosen from my
1994 works. The graphics especially for SUN took me just one week."

Though most artists would be more than happy to have a slideshow
released, Lazur had a bad taste in his mouth when seeing the
spreaded version.

"My slideshow SUN was released without my permission. Every picture
in interlace mode is totally fucked up! If there's anybody who saw
SUN please don't judge me with those pictures."
After SUN, Lazur also made the graphics for Dreamer's musicdisk.

Never won a competition

Despite good motifs and technique, Lazur has yet not managed to
get to the very top in a graphics competition. But he has been very
close:
'Marysia' came second at the first Intel Outside party. 'Stary Buk'
came also second, but this time on the Primavera II party, also in Poland.
Finally there was 'Folx-Vagen Golf', which ended third at the SIH this summer in
Holland. Especially his contribution to the party in Holland with
three boozing men was of very high and clear quality but still the
Polish artist has to wait to get his victory.

The future bringsmore slidehows

Chart placements is not what the quite newcomer Lazur is putting
most of his ambitions into.

"At the end of this year I want to relase a new slideshow on four
disks which should be good designed and harddisk installable. Ofcourse
this is only what I dream of, and I'm not sure if I make it."