Character Sketches

Some character sketches I did this evening. Somewhat Bruce Timm inspired.

Takaya Descends Finish and Process

Hi guys. So I've been in contact with author Daniel Dancer and he and I have been discussing the prospect of tackling a children's book called Takaya. This page is an example and may or may not be used in the final product. I felt that this was a good opportunity to show how I built the image up from a simple sketch to a finalized, realized painting.

Akala Portrait

Hey guys. It's been a while. I've been swapping states a few times but things are finally getting settled. Couldn't sleep tonight so I figured a portrait would be fun. If you guys aren't familiar with the rapper Akala, you should check him out.

Skyrim: Talos Worship Finish!

Hi guys! It is my pleasure to present to you a finished work. After my last concept piece was corrupted, I've been a bit mopey when it comes to digital painting, but tonight I pushed through and brute-forced my way to a finish on this Skyrim fanart.

I ended up changing the Dovakiin's hair to brown because of the light area behind his head, which was making his blond hair disappear. I'm also pretty happy with how the Talos statue came out. I hand drew all of that texture, so I hope it's worth it!

Skyrim Piece WIP and Character Sketch Flats

Hi guys, it's really late, so I am not sure I'm up for a long description of what I have going on, but I did want to update with some art. I'm hoping that's the primary reason you visit my blog. Making slow progress on my Skyrim piece, due to real life challenges, but I think it's coming along.

I've also gotten the flats done for this character drawing. Where it'll go from here, I'm not sure.

Save two PSDs please!

Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. Had a bit of a setback, and I figured I'd pass on the warning. I've been using Photoshop for almost ten years now, and I've always been fairly unconcerned with backing up my files. But like everyone who plays with fire, I have finally been burned. For some reason while working on my Viking/warrior piece my computer BSOD'd with a memory error and corrupted my PSD. I had no secondary PSD and no full size jpeg, so I basically lost all my work. I tried everything to retrieve the PSD, but as you can see below, the best I could do wasn't nearly good enough:

So learn from my mistake as I now have, and save two PSD versions of all of your photoshop files, especially when they're large and use up your computers resources. Anything can happen. Many of the people I read about who had similar problems were simply saving their files and the power went out, or a fuse blew, or whatever. That can corrupt files as well. It takes about an extra two seconds to save the second version every time, and it's always worth it to save twenty hours of work.

So I posted the front view to my website, www.jaymesthompson.com, and had to cut my losses. Time to move on!

So I don't know if any of the people that visit my blog play Skyrim, but I've played it quite a lot and I'd love to work for Bethesda one day. So I've started working on some Skyrim fan art. Here's some work in progress on that piece.

I've also been doing some character sketching. Hope you guys enjoy and I'll see you soon!

In the interim, a portrait

Hey guys. Updating with more daily artwork. It feels good to be getting things done, even if it's not in the order I'm expecting. I was going to have the viking piece done for today, but I guess all bets are off for that. Should be soon, when I get to it, but in the meantime here's a portrait piece I did for an old friend of mine.

Frog Logo and more Viking WIP

Hey guys. Sorry for not updating yesterday. Life's been a bit crazy!

I haven't quite finished my viking but he's coming along. I have a few work in progress images for you. It's actually a bit farther along than this but I haven't saved a jpeg of it and it wouldn't really be worth it to do so. Hopefully I'll have the finalized image for my next blog post!

I've also done a little logo (which I'm not 100% sure will be used) of a Frog for my mother's upcoming website where she will have her artwork as well as offer classes for therapeutic purposes.. I'll be sure to link it for you guys when it's up. She was thinking maybe a butterfly should be her logo because of the theme of transformation, and I said, well why not a frog then! (Obviously frogs are much cooler.)

Viking WIP Front Finished

Evening, ladies and gents!

Today was a busy day for me, so I only got about 5 hours this evening to work on my precious concept design, which I think has progressed nicely!

One of the key things that I noticed upon returning to my desk tonight was how incredibly dark the overall character was, and so I set about to immediately remedy this and increase the contrast of our viking hero. I achieved this mostly with Photoshop's levels (a real time saver if you were thinking I was going to repaint all of that, oh ho ho!), but also with a few personalized touch ups. I continued to move down the figure, rendering each area as I went. I had some trouble with the hands, which indicates to me that I need to do some hand studies from life (don't we all?).

Tomorrow is a day of drawing mostly, so I'll be trying to render the back view. Even if I don't achieve a finish, I'll post what I have here. I hope everyone that visits the blog enjoys my thoughts and these work in progress images. Feel free to comment and tell me what I can improve upon, or what you'd like to hear about my process.

Viking WIPs

So my hope was to finish the front view by the end of the day, but I ended up approaching this in an on-and-off kind of way as I was interrupted by numerous events. I'm still pretty happy with my progress and the current state of the piece. Again I'll include the steps I've taken as I've gone through the day. What do you guys think so far?

Viking Sketch

In addition to building my editorial portfolio, I've also always been interested in game design so I'm trying to build up some character turnarounds to add to my website. This is a sketch of the first one. Normally I don't post my rough sketches anywhere, but I figure this blog is for little extras like this.

Breaking into Editorial

So obviously there are different kinds of art, and different kinds of art markets. One of the things that I learned at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design was that if you have a portfolio of hyper-realistic work, you were targeting certain clients, such as game or movie character design. If you have a portfolio of heavy blacks and action packed scenes you are looking at comics. Child-like themes and colors might get you into children's books - if you know the right author/publisher.

Still, one of the markets most often overlooked by young illustrators is the editorial market. By some paradox, it is currently one of the biggest markets for Illustrators to pursue, and a market in which fame is a true potential. Think of J.C. Leyendecker with his Saturday Evening Post covers, or Norman Rockwell before him. For a more contemporary example, Fred Harper Illustrates "The Week" covers.

While these three artists have fairly realistic styles (Harper sometimes borders on caricature), other editorial markets idolize a focus on line and shape and composition. Using only a few key elements in an article, an artist can convey the contents of said article in a single image, grabbing the attention of the reader.

While the image below may not be the most exciting or fun thing that I've ever created, I will say that I feel it is technically strong, and it is the first of what I hope will be a series of images that will help me break into the editorial illustration market. This image is self promotional, but it is based on this Spirituality & Health article:
http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/simple-path-peace-meditation

Vampire Halloween

Well I hope everyone has had a wonderfully Halloween and got all the candy they wanted. I didn't get any because the trick-or-treaters took all of mine. Thankfully I did manage to pull my Halloween Illustration together, after a few Photoshop hiccups where I managed to lose about two hours of work, yay!

Enjoy!

Halloween Illustration Work In Progress

Hey guys!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and who could pass up the opportunity to create some spooky holiday Illustration for the occasion?! Not I.

I know it's technically the 31st, but let's not get caught up in semantics. Below are some work in progress images of a Halloween Illustration I'm working on, and will hopefully have finished before the kiddies are out collecting their candy. Vampires have always been one of my favorite subjects, even before they were made insanely popular. Here I figured I'd try my hand at one that was recently dug up from a grave. Quite the surprise to anyone who dug her up expecting zombies, I'd say.

Hope you guys enjoy and stay safe this Halloween.

P.S. Remember I try to keep this stuff updated on my Illustration tumblr if that is your preferred social media. And don't forget to check out my Website if you like what you see!