Jason Mackay’s Portfolio Blog

First thing is first, if you are an illustrator and you’re not familiar with the CGSociety - familiarize your self with them.  They are an amazing site dedicated to illustrators, Animators, CG artists and others alike….they have everything art related to the film, game and freelance industry.  I couldn’t convey the amount of useful content they have on the site, you’ll just have to look for your self.

One of my favorite features is their CGChallenge.  They throw two illustration and film challenges every year based on a theme, and it’s a great way to keep your self out there in the community and to try some different illustrative themes.  I recommend to any artist, traditional or digital, to go check out the CGSociety, and get involved in their challenges.  The also have some great prizes

The first challenge of the year is called Dreamscape, and I would like to share with you the process of creating my Dreamscape illustration.  This is a work in progress, so updates will be posted throughout the period of the contest, which commences February 23, 2011.

For this project, I wanted to focus on a more child-like dream, but also had movies like Pan’s Labyrinth in mind.  I want to create a world that I would want to go to as a kid, somewhere where I felt like I was flying, and had extraordinary friends  and adventures.  I’m an nature and animal lover, so naturally the idea of befriending some beast like character would be awesome.   And if it let me sit on its shoulders while it swung through the trees and ran through endless fields, then I would be the happiest boy ever.  I thought it would be visually interesting to have several other doors, and kids running through them to their beast friends waiting for them on the other side.  I’ll be adding some weird and interesting plant life later, which will bring in some color…more will be unveiled as the contest moves on!

Below are a few concepts of the beast, exploring the character’s proportions, and its form as it moves.

Hey Everyone,

After a long hibernation from the world of blogging, I’m happy to say that I’m back!  A lot has happened since my early days of illustrating those tasty Breyer’s Black Pack Ice Creams, and I’m excited to catch you all up on my illustrative progress.   I’ve moved from Book illustrations, to working in the Gaming industry, and am now expanding my experience into the world of Graphic Design.  All have been such great experience and I look forward to sharing with you what I’ve learned along my travels.

They’ve finally arrived!  And they are d’lish!

I can’t get the smile off my face whenever I see these, I’ve bought three of these flavors already and have the empty boxes setting on my black bookshelf.   I still can’t believe I had the privilege of working on these illustrations, and to see them out on the shelf at every grocery store I go to, it’s such a thrill.  Not only that, I even saw a commercial for the ice creams as well!  Crazy to see my imaging work on the telly!

I will post more details on the process of illustrating these ice creams later.  Below is a sample of the “3D” work we send to Breyers to show how the illustrations will sit within the package design and how the product will look as a whole.

Hi Everyone,

Long time no post!  Sorry for the long wait, I’ve been working diligently on a new children book  project.  Though I’d love to show you everything now, I’m going tohave to wait until the book is finished and distributed out to the world.

I was contacted a few months ago by this very well known company, asking me to illustrate this children’s book they are putting together for 150 year anniversary, their hoping this book will be their legacy and plan to send it out to all their clients.  So, hopefully good things come of it!  I’m pretty much done the book, hopeing to have all the polishing done within the next few days, so hopefully soon I’ll beable to share more of the goodies with you all.  Here’s a sneak peek of a piece I’ve been working on for the book.

This is one of my favorite illustrations to date.  While in my second year at Sheridan, I had this project where I was to storyboard the climatic scene in the novel Bram Stokers: Dracula.  This piece was originally a little doodle I did while conceptualizing a few different scenes, it wasn’t the scene I chose to storyboard in the end, but I’ve always wanted to see how it would look as a finished illustration.   So, 3 years later I stumbled on the sketch, and worked on it during my lunch breaks at Davis Design…and now it’s done!

As you can see below, it was a pretty small sketch of the just the chariots, but it was enough to get my creative juices flowing and wanting to illustrate the rest of the gloomy forest.  It was nice to finally find some time to do some more personal painting.

Hello Illustrators and Artists alike!

For my first post, I think it would be appropriate to introduce my self and give a bit of background on what I and this site are all about.

First off, my name is Jason MacKay, I’m an Illustrator based in Toronto, Canada.  I attended Sheridan College’s 4 year Illustration program from 2004-2008  (which I might add was an amazing experience).  It was at Sheridan I decided I wanted to be a digital illustrator, and to illustrate specifically for the Entertainment Industry.  Whether it be creating inspirational illustrations for film, concepts for games, dynamic storyboards for advertising, or narrative illustrations for books - I love it all and what they fulfill in me as an artist.

This site will be dedicated to sharing the goodies that have assisted me along the way, and continue to be sources of reference or inspiration to me.

Enjoy!