Fox Tales: Martin Tomsky Design
Crafty Fox Member Martin Tomksy designs, makes and sells fantastical art and jewellery from intricate layers of laser cut wood. We caught up with him ahead of his appearance at our King’s Cross Spring Market on 11th April, where you’ll be able to meet his weird and wonderful characters and pick his brains about your own custom piece…
Hey Martin! Your artwork is amazing! Can you talk us through your process from idea to finished product?
All my pieces start out as very rough scribbles in my sketchbook - usually from random doodles or notes taken on my phone of ideas that spring up in my day to day life. Anything that shows promise is then redrawn in detail on my tablet in Procreate. Then I draw it again and refine it as a vector design in Illustrator where I figure out the scale, colours and separate out the layers for cutting. Finally, I stain the wood and laser cut each layer separately before assembling and finishing by hand.
You give names to many of the characters featured in your work - how do you decide what to call each artwork?
Occasionally I have a name in the early stages when I doodle the design in my sketchbook but more often than not the pieces are named afterwards based solely on vibes. The best names come from my wife who is much funnier than I am!
We’ve heard your business, as it stands now, began because your previous work caused you to be diagnosed with RSI. Can you tell us a bit more about that, as well as the piece of art that you created, inspired by this?
My background is in illustration and in an attempt to meet a deadline, I worked til my wrist ached and carried on through the pain to finish. I know now that this is the worst thing you can do! Working caused a constant pain in my hand, wrist and lower arm that got much worse if I held a pencil and tried to draw. I was diagnosed with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and once you have it, it’s there for the rest of your life. I took time off drawing, tried (and failed) to learn to draw with my left hand. Eventually, I got physio to help manage the pain and strengthen my hand and wrist. I managed to get drawing again but could no longer draw in the neat and detailed way I used to. I switched entirely to creating laser cut designs - a technique I had begun exploring around the same time all this happened.
The truth is that getting RSI freed me from the constraints that I had built for myself. As a young artist I spent years developing a visual style that I thought reflected me as a person. Eventually that style became a creative dead end that looked and felt derivative. Having to let all that go allowed me to explore and try out new things and ultimately create much more interesting and unusual work.
The piece Repetitive Strain is probably the closest I’ll ever get to making a self portrait. It’s a depiction of what I still feel every day even with exercises and regular breaks. I miss being able to draw for hours on end, I have a limited amount of time each day to get my ideas down so I have to make every design count.
We know you grew up around six siblings with parents who had a past as book smugglers. We’d love to hear some more about this and if you think it’s informed the work you do now in any way. Do you remember there being art in your house growing up?
My parents were publishers and I grew up in a house filled to the brim with books. These were mostly contraband political books that they used to smuggle into communist Czechoslovakia (as it was known then). I had no interest in any of these but occasionally I would find some classic scifi and fantasy that sparked my imagination. Being the youngest of seven, I used to pore over my siblings’ stuff (much to their annoyance) particularly art books, RPG and gaming manuals, album art and comics - they all had quite different tastes so I was exposed to a lot of different styles!
Tell us a bit about creating bespoke pieces for your customers and the creative challenges that brings.
I’m always happy to take on commission work. Making something that is another person’s idea and fits their specifications is always a challenge but it’s also a great opportunity to learn new skills. It’s genuinely the best way to keep growing as an artist, learn new techniques and try out new materials. The challenge is to understand early on what the client wants. Sometimes they have a general idea and are happy for me to do my thing. Other times they have something very specific in mind and it’s very important to nail that down as soon as you can. I encourage clients to let me know if there is anything they don't like as we progress and I send sketches and proofs for approval at each step of the design process so they know exactly what they are getting.
You’ve said before your work is often inspired by fantasy and nature - can you talk us through an example of this?
All my work is inspired by fantasy and nature, the reason I enjoy art and making things is the chance to create worlds and characters to fill those worlds. Fantasy is my favourite genre and, in its purest form, it's a celebration of creativity - the creation of somewhere entirely new that doesn't exist. On the other hand, nature is all around us but feels otherworldly when you look at it closely. Nature is also an almost infinite source of interesting shapes and forms to decorate my designs. I’m currently working on an ongoing series of shrines to gods that probably don't exist (God of Biscuits, God of DIY…etc). It's my way of bringing a sense of fantasy into the mundanity of the real world.
We’d love to hear about your experience at Crafty Fox Markets and as part of the community.
I’ve been working as a full time artist for seven years now (!) and that’s been partly possible due to Crafty Fox. Going to markets and meeting real people, getting feedback and suggestions is so much more rewarding than trying to appease the algorithm on social media. The markets are always so well run and organised which means they’re always worth attending. It’s great catching up with regulars and seeing return customers to buy new things. I’ve even had some quite large commissions come from people visiting my store, including designing a wooden book cover.
What else are you working on right now?
One long term project is finally coming out. I've been designing box inserts for a small run of special edition fantasy books. Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb is the first to be completed this year with the second and third books in the series in progress right now. Robin Hobb is one of my favourite authors so it’s a genuine honour to be part of the project!
Martin is offering a 10% discount at martintomsky.com until 11th April 2026, when he’ll be at Crafty Fox Market at The Crossing, King’s Cross 11am - 5pm.
