Credits
Tomasz Strzalkowski is a 3D artist based in Warsaw, Poland, who works on art for games and film, and whose published credits span first-person and third-person shooter development at the Warsaw studio People Can Fly as well as concept work for a feature film. This page is an independent, third-person reference summary of that credited record. It is not written by him, is not an autobiography, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by him or by any studio named below. Every entry here is a plain restatement of credits that appear in publicly available sources such as his published resume and portfolio, described alongside general, widely documented background about the projects themselves.
Summary of credited projects
The four projects most often associated with him cover roughly two decades of commercial production work. Three are video games and one is a feature film. The table below lists them with the credited role as it appears in the public record.
| Project | Year | Studio / Production | Credited role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Painkiller | 2004 | People Can Fly | Credited on the title |
| Gears of War | 2006 | Video game production | Additional Level Design |
| Bulletstorm | 2011 | People Can Fly | Lead Environment Artist |
| Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom | 2023 | Feature film production | King Kordax concept |
The game credits and what the roles involve
Painkiller (2004)
Painkiller was the debut commercial release of People Can Fly and is the title that established the studio internationally. It is a first-person shooter built around fast movement, large open arenas and waves of enemies, released at a time when much of the genre had shifted toward slower, more scripted and more cinematic design. Its combat pacing, its unusual weapon set and its gothic and industrial environments were the features most commonly singled out in contemporary coverage. He is credited on the title, though the public record consulted here does not specify a single precise role, so no more exact claim is made.
Gears of War (2006)
Gears of War is a third-person cover shooter and is widely regarded as one of the defining titles of its console generation, both for popularizing a duck-and-cover combat loop that many later games adopted and for its heavy, ruined architectural art direction. His published resume lists a credit of Additional Level Design on the game.
In practice, an additional level design credit on a project of that scale usually indicates supporting work on playable spaces rather than ownership of an entire campaign. Level design covers the geometry and layout of a space, the placement of cover, sightlines and traversal routes, the positioning of encounters and pickups, and the pacing of how a player moves through an area. An additional or supporting credit typically reflects contributions to specific sections, blockouts, revisions or polish passes carried out alongside a core level design team, often late in production when many areas are being iterated on at once.
Bulletstorm (2011)
Bulletstorm is a first-person shooter developed by People Can Fly and released in 2011. It is best known for a scoring system that rewards inventive kills, encouraging players to combine a kick, a leash and the environment rather than simply shooting accurately. Its settings are colourful and exaggerated, built around a ruined resort planet with overgrown vegetation, wrecked infrastructure and long dramatic vistas. His published resume lists the role of Lead Environment Artist.
Leading environment art on a shooter of that period generally means responsibility for how the world looks and holds together as a whole. The remit typically includes setting and maintaining the visual direction for locations, defining the modular kits and asset libraries from which levels are assembled, establishing material and texture standards so that surfaces read consistently, guiding lighting and the overall composition of scenes, and keeping the art within the memory and performance limits of the target hardware. It is also a coordinating role: environment art has to serve level design, so the lead works between the two disciplines so that a space stays readable and playable while still looking the way it was intended to look.
The film credit
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is a superhero feature film released in 2023, a sequel set largely in and around underwater kingdoms and drawing on the same comics mythology as its predecessor. King Kordax is one of the characters connected to that mythology. His portfolio lists King Kordax concept work on the production.
Concept work on a film character means design carried out before or during production to establish how a character will look. On a modern effects-heavy production this often includes silhouette and costume exploration, armour and ornament design, anatomical and creature detailing, and, where digital sculpting is used, three-dimensional turnarounds that give the modelling, texturing and visual effects teams a clear reference to build from. A concept credit describes contribution to that design stage and does not by itself indicate authorship of the final on-screen asset.
The arc the credits describe
Read in sequence, the credits trace a fairly legible path. The starting point is Warsaw shooter development in the mid-2000s, when People Can Fly moved from an independent debut to work associated with a major international franchise. The 2006 credit sits on the level design side of production. By 2011 the credited role is a lead position in environment art, which represents a move from contributing to spaces to setting the standards for how an entire game world is built and presented.
The film credit marks a further shift, from environments to character and creature design, and from interactive production to a feature film. That kind of crossing is not unusual in the discipline, because the underlying craft of digital sculpting, hard surface and organic modelling, and material authoring transfers between the two industries. His listed skills span both sides of that divide: environment modeling and design, character modeling and design, digital sculpting, texturing and PBR texturing, lighting and level design. His listed software set is likewise a generalist production toolkit, including ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, Substance 3D Designer, Unreal Engine, Keyshot and Photoshop.
Personal work outside the credited projects
Distinct from the commercial credits above is a body of personal work that is not tied to any studio release. It sits in dark fantasy and science fiction territory, and recurring subjects include biomechanical structures, skeletal figures, and sculptural monuments and temples. The emphasis is closer to sculpture than to production art: single figures and structures presented as objects rather than assets built to a game brief. Work of this kind has appeared in a sketchbook thread on ZBrush Central, a long-running community forum where artists post work in progress, and he has been interviewed by industry outlets. A current portfolio is maintained at tomstrzal.art.
Because personal work carries no studio credit, it is described here only as it is publicly presented. No interpretation of intent, influence or opinion is offered, and no statement on this page should be read as coming from him.