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Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Keith Thompson, also known as Keith Wormwood, is a professional freelance artist who specializes in concept art for movies and games. He also illustrates books and his work has appeared in magazines and online.
Keith Thompson is best known for his illustrations in the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. His art has appeared in the Spectrum Art Annuals and his piece 'The Prophet' was selected and displayed by the magazine at their exhibition at the Museum of American Illustration.
Mr Thompson is also widely known for his work designing the creatures in Guillermo del Toro's film 'Don't be Afraid of the Dark'.
Keith Thompson uses a 50/50 mixed media technique to create his artworks, all lines are drawn by hand, then the drawing is scanned to a computer, and the colours and shading are layered on with different glazes in Photoshop. He lives in Canada.<
Keith Thompson's website
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This interview first appeared at Tor.com, and is reproduced with the gracious permission of the publisher.
The art of Leviathan, Part Two:
An interview with Keith Thompson
by Irene Gallo
Here is the second half of our “Art of Leviathan” posts. Earlier we talked with Scott Westerfeld about what it was like to be the art director on his own book—the steampunk, young adult novel, Leviathan. Now we have artist Keith Thompson talking about the fifty illustrations that help flush out Scott's world. Keith did a great job of mixing historical details with fantastical creatures (both mechanical and animal) creating a fun, action packed pace while maintaining the tone of a more formal era.
You did a tremendous amount of drawing in Leviathan, how long did it take you and did it take over all of your working time?
Each book has a year set aside for it, and I go along illustrating it as Scott writes it. It has definitely been the primary focus artistically, though I've handled some other things over the course of the year as well. Usually during a batch of research I have plenty of artistic energy to do some work on a movie or game since those jobs are often handled in a ...
Frank Beddor had already had a couple of intense careers, a professional skier (two-time freestyle world champion) and filmmaker (producer of the 1998 hit There’s Something About Mary) before deciding to become an ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Leviathan
Try:
The Looking Glass Wars
by Frank Beddor
Kristin Cashore has written for The Horn Book Guide, The Looking Glass: An Online Children’s Literature Journal, and Children’s Literature in Education. She received a master’s degree in children’s ... (more)
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