The Return of the Artist!

Some stuff I've been doing in the time when I never updated my blog.

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!