Gradir's Sketchbook

Underneath: Dwarven Artifacts on Steam!

2025-11-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

I published the Steam page for my solo-developed dwarven RPG, Underneath: Dwarven Artifacts!

It's an immersive game where you take the role of a dwarf 20 years after a big cataclysm shut off the communications between fortresses deep underground.

• You explore procedurally generated caves, mines and tunnels, hand-crafted fortresses and special locations.
• You raise your skills by using them.
• You raise your stats by eating various food.
• You mine for precious ore and gems.
• You gather mushrooms, lichens and crawlers in caves as meal ingredients.
• You fight ugly monsters.
• You fish for... fish. And sometimes magic axes or rings.
• You cook by the fire, or in a cooking pot, to raise your stats even more.
• You drink to get drunk!
• You trade to get more gold! (to spend it on more booze)
• You engage in deep plot that can shake or shape the dwarven realms.

Wishlist now!

Awaken Realms and the Fall of Avalon

2025-05-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

This year will mark 10 years of my professional career in game development!

This has been quite a journey. I started as a Level Artist at Simteract, working on train simulations designed for real-world train operators. Over time, I took on roles as a Texture Artist, did some 3D modeling, and even worked on rotoscoping for a Hollywood film. I explored 2D art as well, and gradually transitioned into more technical roles, learning C# along the way.

After four years, I moved to a new company and stepped into a tech art and VFX position at Rage Quit Games. Alongside that, I became a part-time Art Director for an AR startup project and began teaching game development at a university.

All of this has been interwoven with six trips to Guatemala, where I contributed to archaeological projects

Towards the end of 2022, I joined Awaken Realms — a company that began as a miniature painting project and quickly grew into one of the most renowned board game creators in the world. Alongside their tabletop successes, they also ventured into video game development, with titles like Tainted Grail: Conquest.

Initially, I worked on a small 2D project, but was soon moved to the Questline team, which was developing Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. At the time, the game's Steam page gave little away, and based on Conquest, I expected another board-game-inspired title, perhaps with turn-based movement between 3D environments? To my surprise, the project was far more ambitious — a full-scale RPG inspired by Elder Scrolls classics like Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim (sadly, not Daggerfall!).

I’ve now been working there for nearly three years as a Technical Artist, and we’re finally nearing the release of version 1.0. I’m excited to see how it will be received, and I genuinely hope it breaks into the mainstream. It's a solid, old-school RPG with branching storylines, mature writing, and a rich, immersive dark fantasy world that's truly a joy to explore.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1466060/Tainted_Grail_The_Fall_of_Avalon

Released pre-alpha of Underneath: Dwarven Artifacts

2022-12-30T10:25:00.001-08:00

So, I've been developing this game for a while now, after hours. Finally decided to sit down, fix most serious bugs and release it to the public, hopefully to get some motivation for further development.

Underneath: Dwarven Artifacts is a first-person single-player RPG where you play as a dwarven explorer in an underground world, where Dwarven civilization is rebuilding after a huge collapse.

It's a pre-alpha with placeholder assets, but playable. The main unique selling point is character stats advancement system based on food! Check it out!

EDIT:

Currently in closed beta on Steam, message me (preferably on Discord: https://discord.gg/A2aDA9N3p3) for a Steam key

2015 - 2019: what was going on in my life

2019-03-08T16:32:00.001-08:00

To cut long story short:
I've been to Guatemala five times, participating in archaeological project and digging in Ancient Maya ruins in the jungle http://www.nakum.pl
I've been hired in gamedev in 2015 and we've done some great projects:

3D super-looking train simulator done in Unigine engine - I worked as a Level Artist on it
2D game prototype graphically based on awesome paintings by old friend of mine - http://rochurbaniak.com - I worked as in animator, artist and started writing in C#
Hollywood film post-production
3D projects in Unity - I did some 3D modelling and texturing work
3D turn-based tactical game prototype - I was mainly a texture artist working in Substance Painter
3D post-apo strategy game called Neverdark which was recently announced -

I worked mainly as C# programmer, at the moment doing user interface functionality

So, lots of stuff already, but it's just a glympse!

I've started my own company called Quetzal Studios, I do archaeology from time to time (like establishing an archaeological lab, or doing fotogrammetry http://maya-3d.pl, or some 3D vizualizations - Link
I also started prototyping my own games, like point-and-click adventure game called Polly and Lazy John: FB Link, and one other 3D first-person dungeon crawler with a twist.
I participated in four game jams, helping to create 5 games and doing one by my own! I'll add video links in the comments if anyone would be interested.

When I'll recall some more awesome news I forgot, I'll be smuggling some into new posts with, hopefully, new sketches

Reactivation mode starting

2019-03-08T16:14:00.002-08:00

Need... to... get... back... drawing

Long time no see

2015-10-09T18:12:00.001-07:00

Kurgan published

2014-12-23T16:56:00.002-08:00

Recently a few archeo-news agencies published articles with my 3d reconstruction mentioned in earlier post.

Still unpolished, but what the hell

Archeowiesci

Nauka w Polsce

Some more face

2014-12-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

I focused on the face rather than the whole figure,
gotta get better!

72h Game Jam Madness

2014-11-25T17:29:00.002-08:00

So I found out about this "Indies vs PewDiePie" Game Jam.
The rules are that you have to make all the content during 72 hours.
Along with a programmer from Singapore and Composer from California, we drank shitloads of coffee, beer (in my case), and slept very little to make the game playable! So after this mad struggle, we managed to release it on monday!

You can play it and rate it on this site:
http://gamejolt.com/games/shooter/the-adventures-of-maya/40036

Emotions

2014-11-17T16:03:00.003-08:00

30 minutes portrait from imagination I made this
evening while listening to Tool

There are those times when you feel you hardly made anything creative that day, and you can either hide and go to sleep / play a game / watch another season of -whatever- or sit down, turn on the music and get creative. heh. which reminds me of this video:

Something different

2014-11-11T14:07:00.002-08:00

Today I spontaneously did this thing. Inspired by Eytan Zana
and probably Z. Beksiński. Thank You Sieciech for
encouraging me to add details to it

Evening goblin sketch, archaeological drawings

2014-10-31T16:04:00.003-07:00

Just a really quick goblin assassin sketch,
done while listening to my brother's music
(www.nikolakolodziejczyk.com)

By the way, if anyone's interested how a documentation of ancient pottery looks like, I've made a small plate:

I've made thousands of such drawings. Thousands, man

Leshy, the king of the forest

2014-10-29T18:13:00.002-07:00

Playing with different card illustration styles

Small update on still life practice

2014-10-19T10:26:00.001-07:00

an update on the scene :) auto-tone helped, but now it's flattened.
Time for the detailing...I'm thinking about cutting all the pieces into layers.
Should've done this from the start

Just a super-quick sketch, thought I'd share.
Must do more of these

Some still life

2014-10-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Preparing the elements for the boardgame for beta-test version printing! In the meantime, chatting with my cousin through Google Hangouts and some still life painting. This one I started in July... finally managed to work some more on it. To be continued!

Doodling

2014-10-11T14:37:00.001-07:00

Apart from working hard on finishing the test-version of our boardgame, I try to sketch daily nowadays.
I strongly recommend visiting http://www.fusroda.com/ site and checking the hangouts there. You can connect with 9 other artists from the world to share screens, talk and chill.

Some more doodles are on the way I hope. Cheers

Trip again

2014-08-26T05:43:00.003-07:00

I recently visited my family again, and managed to do some more ( too quick :/ ) plein air tryouts!

And also some ( even too quicker ) speed paints

Doodling

2014-07-26T14:45:00.002-07:00

Some sketches

Starting from today's "I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing" sketch (with steps shown), through some older crap and finally some even older character sketch which has some potential, but I never succeeded in finalizing it (It's actually my player character from older version of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead roguelike - http://pl.cataclysmdda.com/ )

Some books

2014-07-25T10:25:00.002-07:00

I made simple 3d models for presentation of book covers made by myself!

The newest cover is the one with animal skeletons
The rest of them presented here are done during my work at Profil-Archeo Publishing House, which is focused mainly on Archaeological publications.

Additionally, that pottery bowl visible on one of the covers is a 3d reconstruction I made last year after such a small fragment [it's bronze age Pomorska (pomeranian) culture, also for Profil-Archeo.

Visiting

2014-07-09T14:59:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a trip to central Poland, essentially for my brother (http://music.thinkbay.net/)'s concert (trumpet, two typewriters, two sewing machines, woodwind quartet, trombone, vocal and piano jazz trio!). But in the meantime I managed to pull off some sketches.

Speed portrait of my cousin, alongside whom I made the other sketches too.
We practiced using random pose generator from posemaniacs.com,
and also the lowest pose is a random photo from quickposes.com.

30/90 second generated random poses from www.posemaniacs.com

just a random speed mech

what a luck!
first random photo happened to be of a guy
dressed as early medieval warrior
(sort of, the belt is kinda awkward)

WIP Kurgan

2014-06-29T13:13:00.001-07:00

I wanted to share news on a (work-in-progress) 3d reconstruction of a burial from southern Siberia (Altai Mountains). The burial of a young woman with a child, accompanied with a bronze knife and, presumably, food, was put inside a stone chest, covered with two layers of slabs and a rock mound.

Troll

2014-06-05T14:28:00.004-07:00

Just a speed troll fun for the evening today

Plein air tryout

2014-06-03T11:50:00.002-07:00

I always wanted to try plein air painting using a tablet and a laptop! During the weekend I finally had a good chance, but only for a speed painting:

I also started another photo-study of a girl's face (sic!) but I couldn't resist turning it into a bearded dwarf portrait :P

Portraits

2014-05-29T02:40:00.000-07:00

In the meantime I tried making a selfportrait painted on my Wacom Bamboo tablet, Photoshop from a square mirror. Obviously it's still unfinished, I'm planning on continuing it some evening. It will definitely not end up on this one

I was awed by a photo of my friend who is a stylist and a model, and decided to make a small study of the photo, and here's the outcome:

( no color-picking or overpainting was used, I used PureRef for placing the photo on-screen )

Ref: <LINK>

And here is her Facebook Page

Zbrush learning + shaman concept

2014-05-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

I finally started learning Zbrush by making tutorials (The tree is the one made after Zbrush 4 Scuplting for Games book, the rest is just experimenting). I must say that after switching to Zbrush from years of playing with Blender, I was overwhelmed at first. Getting used to the controls and way of orienting the model, and the 2,5D and subtools stuff was a harsh time for me at first. But now, when I finally got to sit and work with it for some time, after learning the basics it became more and more simple and fast to use. I won't say it's user-friendly, especially the noob-user friendly, but after spending some hours in it, preferably with someone more experienced or with a tutorial of sort, it now turns into super-powerful tool :)

From the 2D stuff I also made that (WIP) character, again for the tabletop game mentioned before. It's a concept for a shaman character, one of five the players will be able to choose from, each connected to different pawn color (blue here)