Photoshop Tutorials

Hello Robin, we’d like to know more about you. Can you introduce yourself?

Hello. My name is Robin Lakowitz and at first I want to thank you for asking me to be a part of an interview on your great website. So, I am 15 years old and I live in Bochum, Germany. At the moment I am going in the 11^th class to make my A Level in the next years . For 4 ½ years I work with Photoshop, certainly with large breaks. Also 3 of them were just like, “Wow – I can use a brush!” and stuff. But for 1 ½ year I started to create Artworks – primarily Photomanipulations. In the past years I started to publish my work on Deviantart/Shadowness/Behance and lots of forums – and now I am also on YouTube to share my work. Because of my age I know I have enough time to learn new things and I want to. Also I am happy to say, that because of the feedback I get – like your invite to this interview – my motivation gets higher and higher, so I am able to keep up my work and share it with you!

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15 years old and you have already accomplished much. How did you discover your passion for digital art/graphic design?

It all began really slowly. I was active on gaming-forums when I was 11-12 years old, there I’ve seen lots of cool pictures under the posts by other users. Then I found out that these were called Signatures! (Wow… haha) And I wanted to have some cool signatures like the others. So I started to play around in Photoshop – and it made lots of fun – but the outcomes… I’m glad that I don’t know where they are now. This is how it began. Photoshop became more and more a new hobby to me. After some months I became better and better in signatures and I discovered Deviantart. There I’ve seen that there were lots of large signatures… something new.. I thought: “Haha, they’re too large for a signature, how silly” – but then I noticed that these were called Artworks! (I have to admit: This was a special moment for me). After a while, I think I was 14 years old [by then] already, I created my first Wallpaper – you can find it on my Deviantart-Page (Chong Tese Wallpaper, an ex-player from my favourite soccer team VfL Bochum). And this was the beginning of lots of wallpapers, artworks, photomanipulations and so on. I wonder what would be if I never discovered these mysterious pictures under the posts of other people (Annotation: Signatures, I mean Signatures..)

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You have a great array of work in your portfolio. What usually inspires you to create?

Most of my inspiration I get from music and movies. I watch lots of TV and I hear lots of music – both together create a perfect mixture. The idea for works like Apocalypse or The Aftermath for example came by movies like “2012” , “I am Legend” , “The Day after Tomorrow”. But also my early Childhood is a big inspiration to me, my upcoming work called “The Journey” is the best example for it. My girlfriend has also been a big inspiration to me in the last months – some of her ideas were awesome!

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Is there any artist that you look up to and inspires you?

Not directly. I appreciate lots of Graphic Designers, but I don’t really look up to somebody or gain inspiration from them. That doesn’t mean, that they’re not worth it – quite the opposite – I just want to make my works unique. I try to get no inspiration from others, so I am not going to make similar works like another one or even copying other styles. But I think Martin Grohs deserves a mention – he is a great artist with a great style. I think I do not overstate when I say, that he is the best Graphic Designer in Germany. No one is as creative as him – in my opinion.

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Do you have a specific style that you stick to?

At the moment I prefer to create surreal photomanipulations, but I don’t really stick to one style. I want to be as various as I can. As you see in my Gallery I am changing the style of my works often, sometimes I think, “What about a colorful Artwork full of effects ?”, and sometimes: “What about a photomanipulation with a profound concept?” It’s all situation-dependent.