THIS 👏🏽 ALSO 👏🏽 GOES 👏🏽 FOR 👏🏽 COVER 👏🏽 ART 👏🏽

ThomasLamkinJr - Twitch Wrapping up a book cover, then other commissions

Painting a new children's picture book about a terrifying monster that is very cute. The lore on this one is wild.

www.twitch.tv/thomaslamkinjr

It's been a long day. Do I relax with some commission art work, or do I take the evening off in order to watch a movie?

One may be frustrating but productive, the other may leave me feeling guilty for not being productive enough with every spare moment of my day.

I'm really looking forward to the new "Old Guard 2" movie coming out in a couple of days. I may even celebrate by letting myself create some fanart of it.

A new fantasy novel abo- SQUIRREL | Thomas Lamkin Jr Get more from Thomas Lamkin Jr on Patreon

www.patreon.com/posts/new-fa...

New cover just dropped. And it has nothing to do with a squirrel.

Anymore.

FIND your Senator - Go to senate.gov > Senators > Contact Your Senators > pick your state. E-MAIL (about 3 min) - Click "Contact" beneath each Senator's photo. - Subject: Oppose §43201 (AI Preemption) – E&C FY-25 House Concurrent Resolution 14 - Copy or edit: - My name is <NAME>, and I live in ZIP Code <12345>. Section 43201 would bar every state and municipality from passing AI safeguards for ten years, yet offers no federal framework. It is extraneous to budget policy and violates federalism (Wyeth/Lohr). Please support a Byrd-Rule point of order or vote to strike §43201 from the bill. Thank you. CALL (about 1 min) - Dial 202-224-3121 and ask for Senator <Last Name>. - Script: Hello, I am <NAME> from <CITY/ZIP>. Please support striking AI-law preemption in Section 43201, Subtitle C of the Fiscal Year 2025 budget-reconciliation draft under House Concurrent Resolution 14. It is extraneous under the Byrd Rule and harms states' duty to protect the public, rights holders, and creators.

The House just advanced §43201 (Sub. C, Title IV), AKA the 10 year ban on state AI laws: thehill.com/homenews/hou...

It's now time to reach out to your Senators!

Wondering how? See: 5calls.org/issue/ai-reg...

Or feel free to use the card below.

Folks, the House advanced the disastrous reconciliation bill, with the destructive 10-year State Ban against regulations for AI intact!

We now MUST mobilize our calls to the Senate! Call today!

If you need a script the post below offers a fantastic alternative!

We only have one chance! Lets go!

2 boxes of Krispy Kreme’s specialty Pac-Man donuts, with half plain glazed and half Pac-Man-decorated designs.

🎂 HAPPPPPY 45th BIRTHDAY to Pac-Man (5/22)!

No one else gone to Krispy Kreme to get this week’s limited edition Pac-Man donuts? 🍩

(P.S. Video game donuts are the best donuts. Video game music is the best music! :-D 🎮 🎶
ocremix.org/game/142/pac...)

I just turned 45. This isn't where I expected to be at this point, but I'm still going and getting better.

Halfway to 90 doesn't seem so bad when you've still got dreams.

Gilbert the Cranky Capybara Makes a Friend Gilbert the Cranky Capybara Makes a Friend [Lamkin, Amanda, Lamkin, Thomas] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Gilbert the Cranky Capybara Makes a Friend

And it went live! It's adorable. The drawings were done by my wife who is a self-avowed "not an artist". Now she wants to buy a capybara.

a.co/d/d6Ob5j1

Detail from THE REACH featuring a vast chamber lined with concrete panels. A redheaded woman hangs suspended from iron rings in sideways T pose. With her free arm, she reaches down toward a hazy band of mist below.

Figure detail from THE REACH featuring a woman gripping an iron ring to hang suspended horizontally. The background behind her evokes a huge concrete chamber. Her red hair spills downward obscuring her face from the nose up as she looks downward. She wears white tights and a white billowy top. The sleeve on the arm gripping the ring piles at her shoulder exposing her skin while her hood hangs loosely with her bottom sleeve.

I had to have a third person hold her from rotating out of perspective.

The chains are still hanging in the middle of my studio, but the other paintings I intended to follow this one are still in my head waiting to come out. 2/2

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/re...

Nothing gets better if you just keep your head down forever.

Things are as bad as they are now because this is historically how artists have coped with industry conditions. You either get lucky and hit it big or you quietly bow out when you can no longer afford this very bad situation

screenshot of an email saying Adobe wants to hear from you!

New Adobe Photoshop survey is up, it sure would be a shame if it was flooded with artists leaving anti AI sentiment survey.adobe.com/jfe/form/SV_...

PLEASE. PLEASE. If you are an oil painter or even traditional artist, READ THIS. Take as many precautions as you can with your art.

YOUR HEALTH > YOUR WORK

If learning art is overwhelming:

- reduce what you're learning (too many topics = overwhelm)
- focus on one big topic to improve your current project
- try it, take note of mistakes, try it again

Repeat this every 1-2 weeks and revisit topics to stay fresh.

If I can get faster at this stuff, I'll be able to work on my own pieces again soon.
But a lot of these are low-dopamine and kinda tedious, so it's a struggle to stay away from even fiddling with musical playlists or doomscrolling through social media. Or updating social media for no reason.

Now I'm working on a posthumous set of art designs to make a late artist's work usable in other projects for her family.
Next I'll take a set of art abandoned by another artist and the ai creations the author originally used as inspiration to paint interior work for a children's book.

Reformat a cover submitted to specs that are 'correct' but the publisher knows the printer will be petty and try to print the template as well.
Elevate another cover from an amazing illustration to include title and effect elements that make it look as amazing as the book deserves...

Looks and sounds great!

I asked my community what sort of new YouTube videos they'd like to see from me, and "Composition & Arrangement" was at the top. So... here's a beginner-friendly quickie on how to write more atmospheric chords! https://youtu.be/4-xzz_l3PUs

The big takeaway here is that Reuters won this case against the AI company on grounds they violated fair use—the judge found the AI company was guilty because, in using copyrighted works to generate its output, it “meant to compete... by developing a market substitute.”

Huge.

Gilbert the Grumpy Capybara | Thomas Lamkin Jr Get more from Thomas Lamkin Jr on Patreon

I don't know how this platform handles the mention of Patreon, or a link to a new post there. But there's a grumpy capybara and his indefatigable friend, a happy lil caiman. Real live book coming soon.

www.patreon.com/posts/gilber...

I love the fact that Michael Whelan has always been so open about his processes and struggle. Following his career since I was young and realized that his cover art had effectively been my guide for finding good books for years, he has never hidden the amount of work it takes to make good imagery.

Banner reading LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS 2025 GALLERY PROJECt. The accompanying art is from EXO ENCOUNTER and features a spherical probe droid hovering over a mountain lake. The near foreground is obscured by colorful jagged rocks. On the far right are two small figures in orange spacesuits staring at the massive droid. A small alien lizard can be seen on the far left. The far side of the water is a mix of rock formations and glacial ice. Beyond that rises an escarpment that partially obscures cloudy skies.

We’ll be revealing new art from the 2025 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project on the first Wednesday of each month starting TOMORROW (Feb 5) at 11am EST.

These small original paintings will be available in our shop at the same time.

www.michaelwhelan.com/leftovers-pa...

My eye doctor today asked me how many hours I worked a week and I just stared off into the distance and said “uhhhhh idk I am self employed?” 😆

Well I'm intrigued!

Shout-out to #Xencelabs for helping me sort out some damaged hardware and walking me through the installation of a replacement tab. A reminder to fellow #artists to protect your tablet and watch those nibs BEFORE they can take a tiny scratch and turn it into what d&d would call difficult terrain.

Donate to “Two Beautiful People Inside and Out”, organized by Friends of the Beyer Family In a tragic turn of events, we are heartbroken to share the devastat… Friends of the Beyer Family needs your support for “Two Beautiful People Inside and Out”

Very sad and tragic news to share regarding the DC plane crash: ReMixer DragonAvenger's sister-in-law and niece were among the 67 killed. In you're able to, please give to the family's GoFundMe. ANY amount sincerely helps.

gofundme.com/f/honoring-j...
VIDEO: nbcnews.com/video/young-...

My portrait bootcamp is for you if you:
- Spend too much time thinking about drawing rather than actually drawing
- Don't know what to focus on in your studies
- Get overwhelmed by all there is to learn
- Struggle to balance art with other responsibilities
- Thrive with accountability & structure
👇

Made a detailed rock painting guide (Includes some rendering basics too!)