Keith Thompson specializes in the grotesque. Whether desiccated, corpse like figures wandering across bleak landscapes; alarmingly emaciated creatures, teeth and fangs protruding from folds of hide; strangely organic robots, scratched and worn and suggestive of some sinister purpose; or bizarrely armored warriors of some arcane and forgotten civilization; his drawings and paintings seem to find patterns and textures that suggest the creepier side of the visual world.
His work often harkens to the past, rife with hints of Renaissance grotesqueries, nods to Golden Age illustrators like Arthur Rackham, and, most notably, echoes of the nightmare visions of Hieronymous Bosch.
Thompson applies his talent for the creepy and disturbing to both illustration and concept art. His site has galleries for both, and includes subsections for black and white and color illustration as well as various categories of concept art.
His work has been featured in the Spectrum collections of contemporary fantastic art and his traditional and digital processes are demonstrated in an instructional DVD from the Gnomon Workshop on Character Design Techniques. There are some images from the DVD on the DVD product page as well as an instructor gallery on the Gnomon Workshop site.
