Jakub Różalski (born 1981), also known as Mr. Werewolf, is a Polish

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

. He is best known as the illustrator of the board game ''

Scythe A scythe (, rhyming with ''writhe'') is an agriculture, agricultural hand-tool for mowing grass or Harvest, harvesting Crop, crops. It was historically used to cut down or reaping, reap edible grain, grains before they underwent the process of ...

'' and related paintings, commonly featuring mythical, fantastical beasts, robots and similar concepts. His style combines the classic art style of late 18th and early 19th century paintings with modern

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

and

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

concepts.

Biography

Różalski was born in

Koszalin Koszalin (; ; , ) is a city in northwestern Poland, in Western Pomerania. It is located south of the Baltic Sea coast, and intersected by the river Dzierżęcinka. Koszalin is also a county-status city and capital of Koszalin County of West Pomera ...

, Poland, in 1981. He graduated from the Wyższa Szkoła Sztuki Stosowanej in

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

, and resides in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

Works

Różalski created concept art illustrations for the 2017 '' Kong: Skull Island'' film. In 2018, an artbook featuring his works, titled ''Howling at the Moon,'' was published. The 2016 board game ''

'' was inspired by his art; Różalski has contributed dozens of illustrations for the game. It is the first major work in what Różalski calls the ''1920+ universe,'' set in an

alternative history Alternate history (also referred to as alternative history, allohistory, althist, or simply A.H.) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As ...

universe, around the time of the

Polish–Soviet War The Polish–Soviet War (14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution. After the collapse ...

, but incorporating science fiction elements like

dieselpunk Dieselpunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction similar to steampunk or cyberpunk that combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmod ...

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and Applied arts, aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century Industrial Revolution, industrial steam engine, steam-powered machinery. Steampun ...

airships and

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japan ...

. This style has also been described as inspired by classic works by

Józef Chełmoński Józef Marian Chełmoński (7 November 1849 – 6 April 1914) was a Polish painter of the Realism (art movement), realist school with roots in the historical and social context of the late Romanticism in Poland, Romantic period in partitioned Pol ...

, but updated for the new century; as "

The Witcher ''The Witcher'' (, ) is a series of 9 fantasy novels and 15 short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The series revolves around the eponymous witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Witchers are monster hunters given superhuman abilities for the ...

meets mecha". The next major installment in the 1920+ series is the ''

Iron Harvest ''Iron Harvest'' is a real-time strategy video game developed by King Art Games and published by Deep Silver. Players control mecha and infantry in a dieselpunk setting. The game was released for Windows on September 1, 2020; and for PlayStati ...

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

video game, in development by

King Art Games King Art Games (stylized as ''KING Art Games'') is a German video game developer. The company created the point-and-click adventure ''The Book of Unwritten Tales'', including its prequel called ''The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicle ...

, announced in 2016. The game had a successful crowdfunding phase in 2018 and has been released in September 2020.

Influences

In 2017 a short film by

Neill Blomkamp Neill Blomkamp (; born 17 September 1979) is a South African and Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known as the co-writer and director of the science fiction action film ''District 9'' (2009), for which he was nominated for the Aca ...

, based on Różalski's works and showing an alternate 15th century era around the time of the

Battle of Grunwald The Battle of Grunwald was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respectively by King Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), a ...

, was announced. In 2018, a Polish science-fiction short story anthology, inspired by his art, titled ''Inne światy Jakuba Różalskiego'' (''Other Worlds of Jakub Różalski'') was published. Writers who published stories in the anthology were Sylwia Chutnik,

Jacek Dukaj Jacek Józef Dukaj (pronounced: ; born 30 July 1974) is a Polish science fiction and fantasy writer. His fiction explores such themes as alternate history, alternative physics and logic, human nature, religion, the relationship between science a ...

, Aneta Jadowska, Anna Kańtoch, Jakub Małecki,

Remigiusz Mróz Remigiusz Mróz (Polish pronunciation: ; born 15 January 1987, Opole, Poland) is a Polish writer and lawyer. He is considered a popular and prolific author(2 November 2018Remigiusz Mróz odpowie na Wasze pytania ''LubimyCzytać'' (in Polish; artic ...

Łukasz Orbitowski Łukasz Orbitowski (born 26 October 1977) is a Polish essayist and fantasy and horror fiction, horror writer. As of April 2012 he has published six novels and numerous short stories, collected in four anthologies. Biography Orbitowski is alumnu ...

, Robert J. Szmidt, Aleksandra Zielińska, and Jakub Żulczyk. Jamey Stegmaier noted that Różalski " ..used some references ..and photos from the internet, in several

orks Ork or ORK may refer to: * Ork (folklore), a mountain demon of Tyrol folklore * ''Ork'' (video game), a 1991 game for the Amiga and Atari ST systems * Ork (''Warhammer 40,000''), a fictional species in the ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe * '' Ork!' ...

(maybe 10, maybe more) ytrack ngphoto in 1:1, for some elements like: horses or pigs, cow or specific parts, even some characters."

Artistic style

Różalski's style combines the classic art style of painters like

Ivan Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (; – ) was a Russian landscape painter and graphic artist, one of the most famous landscape painters of the post-reform era, and the creator of the iconic painting '' Morning in a Pine Forest''. He was an academician ...

Isaac Levitan Isaac Ilyich Levitan (; – ) was a Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the "mood landscape". Life and work Youth Isaac Levitan was born in a ''shtetl'' of Kibarty, Augustów Governorate in Congress Poland, a part of the R ...

Józef Brandt Józef Brandt (1841 in Szczebrzeszyn – 1915 in Radom) was a Polish painter best known for his paintings of battles in Polish history. Life Brandt studied in Warsaw in the school of J.N. Leszczynski and at the Noblemen's Institute. In 1858 he ...

Aleksander Gierymski Ignacy Aleksander Gierymski (30 January 1850, Warsaw – d. 6–8 March 1901, Rome) was a Polish painter of the late 19th century, the younger brother of Maksymilian Gierymski. He was a representative of Realism as well as an important prec ...

, and

, whom he cites as highly influential on his style, with modern fantasy and science fiction concepts.

Recognition

Since 2018 his works have been part of the permanent exhibition in the Museum of Magical Realism "Ochorowiczówka" in

Wisła Wisła (; ; ) is a town in Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland, with a population of about 11,132 (2019), near the border with the Czech Republic. It is situated in the Silesian Beskids mountain range in the historical region of ...

, Poland. That same year, Różalski received the Annual Award of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the field of "digital culture".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Różalski, Jakub Living people 1981 births 21st-century Polish painters Polish fantasy artists Polish science fiction artists 21st-century Polish male artists Dieselpunk Steampunk Polish male painters Polish contemporary painters People from Koszalin