Featured Artist for the Week – Jaime Jasso

Featured Artist for the Week – Jaime Jasso

Dec 05

please tell us a brief info about yourself.

my name is Jaime Jasso, born in 1974 in Guadalajara Mexico , actually working and living in Los Angeles CA since 2007.

Tell us about your humble beginnings, When did you you first realized that you wanted to be an artist?

Since I was a child I always liked to be creative in so many different ways like, sculpting on clay, creating my own toys with paper and wood and eventually drawing and painting. As I was growing up and learning more, I found a fascination on comic books and sci fi, that’s when in the late 70′s I discovered Star Wars , Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. When I saw them I started to wonder how did they do that? Why does it look so cool? Later, on high school I studied more about painting, drawing and more traditional art skills like color, perspective and composition. Thanks to the television some 15 years ago, I found the movie magic documentary and that’s when I decided that I wanted to do visual effects for film, tv or video games.

I went to industrial design university, bought a computer and learned by myself, just through tutorials and book, back then school learning on CG was almost impossible where I come from.

What are your tools of the trade: mouse, tablet, brush or pen and ink or pencil? and why?

A Wacom tablet is a must for anybody doing CG painting and photo manipulation, actually right now I use it to sculpt on Zbrush, I have a mac G5 for my photoshop, 2 pc’s for compositing and 3D and a belkin n42te speedpad for my photoshop shortcuts.

Who or what gives you inspiration?

When do personal art sometimes it comes easy but there are times that my brain is totally dry and nothing comes in for weeks and it is really frustrating. When that happens I just browse the internet for inspiration, like photo galleries, landscapes, cityscapes just to put in my brain lots of images that can ignite an idea spark, all of a sudden in I can mix and come up with one idea. But this process is not a one day thing generally I need days maybe even weeks, some other times I have plenty ideas at the same time. I guess this creative paradox happens to everybody,

Is your artistic background self-taught or did you go to college to study?

As I mentioned before, I’m self taught in all CG matters, and for creative matters, I guess intuition since I was a little boy, some other skills I’ve learned with other people or schools.

What are some of your current projects?

I’m actually working for BLUR Studio in Venice CA, right now I’m working for some in house projects, mainly concepts and matte painting, and some other video games cinematics that will hit next year I work as well in my own personal cinematography project which you can see some works on my site, but I wish I could have more time for it.

Which of your works are you the most proud of? And why?

Some of the images shown on ballistic publishing books , like old england, thekno city and some other are the kind of work I still see after I worked on them years ago and I still like them , I’m a perfectionist and after I finish one work I see errors on my own work that will not make again for my next project , it’s just a matter of learning with practice.

Are there any areas, techniques, mediums, projects in your field that you have yet to try?

I want to learn more Zbrush right now. I think it’s such a powerful tool not only for characters, and I will start using some for my foreground rocks and details on 3D, I want to do some cinematography as well, I have been directing some video clips and basic stuff and I think I’m ready for the big step now.

What do you do to keep yourself motivated and avoid burn-out?

I always try to learn new software and techniques, I also try to search for other artist work for inspiration of any kind be it traditional or digital artist, challenges are the best way to learn because they will make you learn something you don’t know to achieve the last result.

When you’re not in front of your canvas, how do you spend most of your free time?

I love playing guitar, blues and rock, so sometimes I just practice for hours, I go out and practice photography as well, places mostly, in this way I keep my eyes trained.

and finally, What advices/tips can you give to the novice designers/ illustrators out there?

Practice and practice, even after practicing! It is the only way you can be better, always look for a challenge, always study another artist’s images, wonder how did they achieve that, analyze every pixel and your brain will figure it out, always keep up with the latest in software and techniques, spend a day in the CG industry to see what’s new in software and hardware, show your images to another artist and never be scared of bad critics, use them to grow in your artistic skills.

(c) Jaime Jasso – reproduced with permission

For other information, please contact him at:

website: jjassodigitalworks.com

Wanna be a featured artist and get your art some exposure?

email me at: mcedesigns@gmail.com
with the subject: interview request

Designer’s Depot: the best source for artists, designers and art lovers.

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