JUSTIN K THOMPSON

Shapes # 0001

2012-02-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

Comic Collaboration - selected panels

2012-02-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

I was invited to contribute to a comic book collaboration between a few dozen artists at Sony Pictures Animation. These are a few panels excerpted from one of my sections.

I'll post more info about the comic as it develops.

Sketchbook - Fairy Stuff

2011-12-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

Fairy doodles.

House

2011-11-28T17:57:00.000-08:00

Seems that since I bought a house last year, most of my artistic effort goes into re-modeling. I'm hoping soon to get back to some personal artwork that needs my attention.

In the meantime, this is a design that I created as a guide for the re-modeling. I have to give credit for the artistic choices to my wife, who really came up with the great ideas. I've just been doing illustrations and drawing plans to help her get what she wants. We're about 75% of the way finished and I think it's looking pretty great so far.

Needs landscaping tho...back to the drawing board...

color study

2011-09-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

30 minute digital color study

2 Sided Woman With Bowl

2011-08-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

Blue Tree

2011-04-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Another experiment.

I must admit, this one got away from me, and I am none too pleased with the results.

However, there is a time when one must admit defeat, or risk over-working the image. I fear I may have already gone past that point with this one. I suppose though, that is aim of these experiments anyway...I believe it is failure that teaches us to be successful.

I'm going to have to try this again with a different approach.

Green Tree

2011-03-28T17:09:00.000-07:00

Another experiment.

life drawing - pen and ink

2011-03-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

More fun with the quill pen.

Getting more a little more confidence back...still a long way to go...

life drawing - pen and ink

2011-03-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

Back to traditional media, back to life drawing.

India ink, a quill pen, and one of my favorite models.

Orange Tree

2011-02-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

Another experiment.

Figuring stuff out, pondering ideas, trying things I can use on a more ambitious piece later.

Yellow Tree

2011-02-18T01:11:00.000-08:00

A quick experiment.

Trying some ideas to use in a more ambitious piece later.

Flint's Lab - The Ceiling

2011-02-17T16:13:00.000-08:00

I designed hundreds of elements for the interior of Flint's Lab, so many that I forget how much time I really spent on it. Anyway, I was digging through the archives and stumbled across this fun little drawing/design of a pattern I created that would later be applied to the ceiling and walls of the lab.

girl #017

2011-02-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

10 minute warm-up sketch from this morning.

post-it note #0124

2011-02-14T13:44:00.001-08:00

From this morning's production meeting.

Mother and Child - digital

2011-02-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

A digital comp for a new painting based on a very old theme.

Plastic Girl - digital

2011-02-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

A warm-up exercise based on a fashion photo that I found on the internets.

I was interested in all the folds of plastic and how light was passing through them, so I decided to study it in more depth. I took lots of liberties with the model (obviously!) just because I happen to enjoy elongating the figure.

"Qiss" - Woodcut - Ink on Paper

2011-01-24T23:21:00.000-08:00

Here is my entry for the Q-Pop show this weekend.

I made a limited edition of 10 prints and you can get your hands on one for $10 at the show.

There will be lots of other great art for sale at the show and plenty of neat artists to say hi to in person. Please drop in to support the show and the greatness that is Q-Pop.

You can haz address and link:

128 Astronaut E S Onizuka St

Los Angeles, CA, 90012

http://qpopshop.blogspot.com/

untitled (digital comp)

2011-01-11T15:06:00.000-08:00

A digital comp I did for an oil painting I'm working on.

Work In Progress - Dinosaurs vs. Cowboys

2010-12-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I like to draw silly things in my spare time - like cowboys riding purple dinosaurs with big, scary teeth.

This one is still a work in progress (there's a lot to do before it's finished) but it's headed in a fun direction and I thought it would be fun to share.

Warm-Up Drawings 002

2010-12-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

Some more sketches from the last few days.

Cloudy Sketchbook - Suburban Homes

2010-12-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post production stuff cause it's kind of boring to me, but I came across some sketches from the early days of Cloudy that I kind of liked. With the exception of the one on the lower right, these were all sketched really small on a single piece of 16 field paper.

The one on the lower right eventually became Flint's house.

Warm-up Drawings 001

2010-11-30T01:46:00.000-08:00

Some doodles I did to warm up the drawing hand this morning playing with a random theme.

Q-Pop Shop

2010-11-11T20:03:00.000-08:00

I recently helped out my friends Chris Mitchell and Miki Panteepo by doing some interior designs for their new store in Little Tokyo.

The East Wall.

Designed to be the main display for merchandise.

The T-Shirt Display Wall.

An elaborate idea for showing off cool T-Shirts

that was too ambitious and will have to wait for a bit.

The pattern is intended to break up the monotony of solid colors

and re-use the theme of rounded boxes at a smaller scale.

The Front Counter.

Designed to tie in with the East Wall,

I've inverted the colored boxes to serve as counter space.

The back of the counter is hollow and reveals a counter top

for the register and a laptop computer.

The Sitting Area

The space next to the front counter was an intimate space

that allowed for a sitting area and a wall that could display

large pieces of custom artwork that Chris will give

local artists the chance to illustrate.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

Definitely go check out the store!

128 Astronaut E S Onizuka St

Los Angeles, CA, 90012

Chris and Miki have great taste and you'll definitely find

some things there that you won't find anywhere else!

Links:

Q-Pop blog: http://qpopshop.blogspot.com/

Q-Pop on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Angeles/Q-Pop/110817182312067

Self-Portrait # 31

2010-10-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Haven't had any time (in a long time) to get anything done. Excited to say that, in August, I moved to a new house where I gained an office to do works in. More to come, more often.

First, here's the latest in a long line of insulting self-portraits.

Sketchbook Doodles #14

2010-04-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Fun with plants.

Sketchbook Doodles #13

2010-04-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

49 cars, 1 bus, 2 motorcyles, and a delivery truck = fun with shapes

The Graduate - Design Pass #1

2010-03-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

So, now that I've roughed out the basic idea in PS (see the earlier post) I have to go through the painful process of actually designing everything. Even though the idea was born on the cintiq, I still go back to pencil and paper at this stage. I'm impressed with people who can design everything in the computer - it saves paper and time - but, for the life of me, I can't seem to do it.

The initial concept sketch is the most fun part for me, but at this stage my mentality switches to "tear the drawing apart" and I try to criticize every aspect of the drawing - re-drawing things over and over again until I feel that I've really worked out all the problems. It's a slow, labor intensive process that pays off in the end. Sometimes.

I will fill up several more sketchbook pages before I settle on the final design. I'll post those as I go.

Sketchbook Doodles #12

2010-03-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

Just unloading some sketchbook doodles that I have laying around.

The Graduate

2010-03-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

Concept art for a book cover. Not final. Just figuring out the basic color and composition.

Cloudy Fonts for Jim Heuer

2010-03-05T02:21:00.000-08:00

When I started developing the look of Cloudy, one of the many things I took into consideration were the fonts. Although it was a bit more work to create custom fonts, I felt it was important that the fonts were consistent with the style of the artwork the visual development team and I were generating.

Some of the first images I created were just studies of line and shape in Flint's laboratory like these.

Working closely with the directors I started to refine some of the information into tighter drawings, like this one describing the equipment on Flint's computer desk.

From there I expanded out into the town, starting with Tim's Tackle Shop, and started to get looser with the style and the shapes.

By the time I started designing some of the other buildings in the town, it was clear to me that the fonts I had started to put on the signage were a big part of the charm within the style we were developing. I had made a rule that there were no parallel lines and that everything should feel hand drawn whenever possible. Also, since we had decided that our shape language was going to stay ultra-simple, the designs needed to rely heavily on the relationships between thick and thin linework and the contrast of textures within the simplified shapes in order to generate interest and beauty.

I tried to apply this rule as often as I could, even when I was designing something as simple as a piece of sushi.
However, I knew that we would have to use type-able fonts at some point, just to keep up with the pace of production. I searched everywhere for fonts that would fit the style I had created, but they just weren't specific enough. So, I decided that it would be worth the time and effort to create our own. I designed all of the fonts with a pencil first, like this one.

Then, we translated them into Illustrator files. The programming for the fonts was done using Fontographer 4.0 and - boom - the Cloudy fonts were born.

Incidentally, I created the "Cloudy Title" font specifically for the marketing department - it's the title font that they use on everything related to Cloudy and it's the only font for which I bothered to create a lower case set.

I must pause here and mention that the Cloudy LED and Cloudy 8-Bit font were designed by Simon Rodgers and that Dave Horowitz, our beloved intern, helped us with a lot of the vector labor in Illustrator.

It was worth it, because there were hundreds of places - like this email window I designed in Photoshop - where the fonts allowed us to save time and keep things relatively consistent. It would have been distracting if the fonts were perfectly straight and evenly proportioned within the asymmetrical email window. Or, at least, to me.

There were a few places where the Directors and I decided that we would break the rule on purpose. The Weather News Network was one such place. Our reasoning was that Sam and WNN were from the world outside of Flint's experience. She was foreign to the island and far more sophisticated than anyone living there. So, it made sense to us that the symbolism of the outside world would have straight lines and a traditional kerning style.

As a side note here: I designed all of the WNN logos and chyrons, including the way too energetic WNN intro. This scene, when it actually appeared in the film, was constructed with my actual photoshop image (seen here). The layer effects were set on top of one another in such a way that when they were rotated underneath one another, it created the faux lighting effect.

This web page was another place I broke the rule. Flint is doing research on the internet, and in this case the Directors and I felt that, for the joke to read clearly, it needed to look as much like a real web page as possible. So, I used "normal" fonts.

And broke it here again, when I wanted the font to look like the one on the cover of the original children's book.

And when we designed the rest of the end title cards, like this one for Kris Pern, I wanted each font to be different, hoping it would fit better within the design of the shot.

And, of course, I watched too much "I Love Lucy" growing up and just couldn't resist this one.

I created the Cloudy Sci-Fi font specifically for the opening credits. This is my mock up for the scene, created in Photoshop. I am very proud to have worked on a film that began with such an awesome credit.

But, my favorite font moment (whatever that means) was my last minute assignment to design the opening title. I couldn't believe that I was getting the chance to put so many of my favorite childhood references into one shot.

But, it wasn't over. It was only a few weeks until we wrapped on the movie and there was still the crawl. I designed the crawl using the Cloudy Bold font and created all of the background shapes + color in Photoshop.

Thanks for asking about the fonts Jim. Even though it can seem like a small part of the movie, I think the little details like the fonts help tie everything together and I was very proud of the effort we put into it. It's nice to have someone to share it with.

From Cloudy directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller for all ASIFA members...

2010-01-22T13:49:00.001-08:00

Back to Life Drawing

2010-01-20T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, I went to a life drawing session for the first time in nearly two years. IMHO, drawing is like exercise, you have to do it all the time if you want to stay in shape. Before the baby, I went a couple of times a week and it was no surprise that the dry spell has made me quite rusty.

Anyway, this was the only halfway decent drawing I got out of last Friday's session.

Kutmasters

2010-01-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

It's a new year, so I felt obligated to post something. There will be more original stuff coming soon...I have been busy but nothing's finished yet. (isn't that always the case?)

For now, here's one of the many background posters that I designed for Cloudy. You never really see it very clearly in the film, but you can glimpse it in the corner of Cal's room at the beginning of the snow day sequence.

This was fun to do because I'm a big fan of early hip hop and this was sort of an homage to that time.

The Illyrian

2009-11-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

Some of the images at the Norton Simon inspired me to do this loose study.

environment study

2009-10-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

A quick study for a project I'm developing with Carey Yost.

Eventually, we'll go in another direction because this isn't the right look for our project, but the exploration is fun.

Cloudy - Baby Brent

2009-10-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who went to see Cloudy and helped it become a huge success. In return, here's a bit of fun that didn't make it to the "Art Of" book.

Over three and a half years of work, this is one of my stand-out favorites - designing the character and creating all the key frames for the little "Baby Brent Sardines" cartoon near the beginning of the movie. This is how the poses looked when I turned them over for timing.

I purposely made the color pop in a few frames and then we removed about three or four of these frames to make the animation even choppier. Finally, we added a heavy "16mm film transferred to VHS" look over it to get the look in the movie.

G&P - First panel

2009-09-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

One panel down, one hundred and thirty seven to go.

-JT

Introducing...Gordon

2009-09-24T01:12:00.001-07:00

I've written and penciled a comic book of my own called "GUILT AND PUNISHMENT". The story follows Gordon, a melancholic, obssessive-compulsive, perfectionist with a persecution complex.

I'm not sure if the comic is funnier if you know me or if it's just sadder, but either way, I'm going to make all of my friends suffer through it and pretend to be supportive. I will post regular updates from now until I'm finished, so come back every week or so and there will be new stuff.

If I don't post you can punch me in the face. I'll take it as motivation.

Apologizing in advance, Justin

Dr. Nakamura - Rough Pass

2009-09-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

Had few hours to let loose and felt like playing around with a "Bond villain" archetype for fun.

Overcity - rough comp

2009-09-15T23:45:00.000-07:00

Did this really quick to help a friend with a pitch.

The Academy - 2nd rough pass

2009-02-28T05:01:00.001-08:00

I've gotten a little further with this one. (see earlier post.) Still fleshing this out, but I'm at a stage where I think it's starting to work well so I thought I'd post my progress. A few more hours and I can start the color.

Mountain Village - Arriving

2009-02-12T01:33:00.000-08:00

Two rough sketches of compositions I am working on for my portfolio. They started as sketches in the moleskine (as they usually do) then I painted over them in PS. Each one took about three hours. That's longer than I usually spend on a rough, but I was really having fun with these.

I haven't decided which one I like better and it's likely that I'll do more sketches like this before settling on the final composition.

Throne Room Interior Thumbnail

2009-01-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

Another thumbnail for the same personal project as the last one. Again, just setting up the composition and the lighting.

This one started as a little pencil sketch. Scanned it in and used PS to do a lot of the tonal work 'cause I wasn't quite sure what to do with the lighting and the foreground.

Study Interior Thumbnail

2009-01-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

So, here's a thumbnail for a personal project.

Just setting up the composition and lighting concepts. The scale and details will change as I take it to a final piece, but as overall impressions go I was fairly pleased with this composition.

Hello Again!

2008-08-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

Back by unpopular demand! Justin Thompson's BLAHG!

Many people have asked me why it disappeared in the first place. Honestly, I didn't think anyone would miss it. I know I didn't.

BUT!

Enough people seemed to miss it so, I thought I'd oblige them and re-post.

Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to keep asking for it to come back.