The lore:

I have been an artist ever since I was a child. When I was in elementary school I would create books with quirky stories and hand drawn covers. I would stuff them into the bookshelves in the classroom along with the other books. My classmates would all fight to be the next person to read my stories. I do not think the joy of having other people appreciate my hard work and creativity ever left me. I would continue to create various projects throughout my teenage years from small video games to comic books. In highschool I studied computer science and traditional art. I could not decide what sort of career I would want to take as my passion for computer science and art seemed to conflict with eachother.

I ended up studying the traditional arts for two years at the Alberta College of Art and Design. It was there that I started to become increasingly aware of the potential of computer aided art and so I decided to transfer to a local community college after COVID-19 resulted in me having to leave Canada. I started to apply my traditional painting skills to digital mediums and even started learning 3d software such as Blender to help aid me in creating my artworks. During my isolation during the pandemic I created a series of astronomic artwork pieces that ended up placing me in Astrology magazines’s “50 Greatest Comic Scenes Of Our Time” issue. It was through my love of astronomical artwork that I discovered the matte painter Chelsey Bonestell’s artwork and was formally introduced to the field of visual effects.

Digital Paintings:

Here is a link to more of my digital illustrations: https://www.artstation.com/artistjaydrake

Traditional Paintings

You can find most of my traditional paintings on my Instragram, but you might have to scroll down a bit: https://www.instagram.com/j_t_drake/?hl=en

After completing my Associates at Elgin Community College I applied to study visual effects at the Savannah College of Art and Design. SCAD is an incredible institution and I have learned so much and was afforded so many opportunities to work and learn as a visual effects artist. I have been able to work as a compositor on Carved in Stone which is currently nominated for best Visual Effects among other nomiations by Lawebfest2024. I was also able to do visual effects supervisor for America’s Consequence which was the senior project of hannah Setzler.

Discovering Visual Effects has been like a dream come true because it allows me to pursue my passions for visual art and computer science. In the future I plan to work within the visual effects industry to make a living making innovative artwork. In my freetime from that I plan on documenting my experiences as an artist and sharing them to help enable other artists to have sucessful creative careers.