The High Five: Jackademus Takes on ESO

This week’s High Five has a bit of a twist – we’re throwing five questions over the pond to Jack “Jackademus” Lawrence, a freelance comic book artist out of the UK by day and a dashing Bosmer Vampire Nightblade in The Elder Scrolls Online by night.

Jack’s impressive artwork has been featured in such comics such as Skylanders, Doctor Who Adventures and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We wanted to chat with Jack since his experiences in ESO have inspired him to create comic-styled drawings of characters featured within Tamriel.

1. What is it about ESO that’s inspired your art?

It’s the vastness of the world; in physical terms, the lore, the sheer amount of “stuff” you can get up to. It’s very easy for life as a freelance artist to just become about working from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. I kinda need something that’ll force me to relax. I work from home, so as soon as I’m done for the day, the PS4 goes on and I get back to Tamriel!

2. What’s essential when trying to capture a character from a game?

The attitude! You get the attitude right and half the battle’s won. An arrogant, tilted back head for an Altmer Sorceror. A sneaky, sidelong glance for a Dunmer Nightblade. Mannerisms that may not really be seen in the game necessarily, can communicate the essence of a character immediately when it’s drawn.

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3. Tell us a little bit about your ESO character, Jagger. We saw he recently became a vampire.

He did! I thought becoming a vampire was going to be really tough without buying the bite from the store; I wanted to do it as part of the story, so [I] needed someone to bite me! But after only a couple of visits to the shrine in Bangkorai, a lovely Italian vampire bit me without question and that was it!

I got really attached to my character from Skyrim, so my first ESO character was an ancestor of his, because I’m a nerd like that. But I just didn’t warm to him, so really early on I scrapped him and started again and found that if you take a Bosmer and make them as short as possible, you get an awesomely tiny character! Now my love for Jagger has totally eclipsed my Skyrim guy and I can pride myself on usually being the tiniest character in any given situation.

I just cleared Vampire Level 10, and I’m patiently waiting for the Thieves Guild DLC now so I can use my sneaking skills to do some good (or bad, I guess!).

4. Which of your ESO inspired pieces is your favorite?

While I’ve done a lot of ESO drawing, it’s all rough, scrappy stuff that I do in corners of scripts or thumbnail sheets; very little has actually been finished. So I guess I’d say the Daedroth piece. I just love that monster, in a “hating-them-when-they-burn-my-vampire” kind of way.

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5. Tell us about your experience playing ESO – how you play and level.

I’m almost always in Sneak (thank you SO much for the Vampire sneak perk!), moving through shadows wherever I can. I just love the whole roleplay element of that.

In terms of levelling, I’m not massively focused on that. My brother-in-law swears by the Intimidation perk because of the speed he’s levelling, but he’s a different kind of player; I want to experience it all, listen to the characters, kill (and sometimes be killed) by the monsters. I’m about to start the Coldharbour quests, so I’m going back and clearing my achievements. I’m a bit of a completionist, and I want to feel fully ready to achieve Veteran ranks when the time comes. I’m on Level 47, so it should be soon!

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Great to catch up with Jack and learn more about the inspirations behind his artwork. You can see more of Jack’s art here on his website. And don’t forget, if you have any Bethesda-inspired creations that you’d like us to share in a future High Five, be sure to tag them using the #BethesdaHighFive hashtag on social. Until next time, travellers!