It is my opinion that Tom Bagshaw stands among the most visionary artists working today. Over the past 25 years, he has built an extraordinary visual legacy—one defined by sublime, one of a kind imagery that continues to captivate audiences around the world. Not simply just beautiful, his work demonstrates technical mastery, imagination, and emotional resonance. I regard his paintings as absolute artistic treasures of our time.

Born and based in Bath, England, Tom spent the early aughts refining his skills as an illustrator for clients such as Sony and GQ, developing the technical and atmospheric flair that would later define his current work and paintings. In 2010, he made the leap to becoming a full-time artist, an exciting transition that opened the door to an expansive body of work.

Since then, Bagshaw has built a striking visual universe rooted in fantasy, mythology, and science fiction. His paintings—rich with ethereal figures, opulent and creative details, and otherworldly landscapes—invite viewers into realms where beauty and mystery coexist. Each piece feels like a portal, sparking deep imaginative thought and a sense of emotional wonder.

Our first correspondence dates from May of 2012 with an early interview soon after and we have grown into close friends over the last decade, something I'm wholeheartedly grateful for. I had a wonderful time getting to ask these questions to Tom and getting to know my friend even better. Please enjoy:

Let's go back a few years here: What sort of art were you creating as a teenager and who were your inspirations?

Honestly, what I'm painting now isn’t too far removed from what I was doing way back then, I loved doing drawings and paintings with a fantastical element to them. I was influenced by comics, myths, and folklore, magic and esoteric art, artists like Boris Vallejo, Chris Achilleos, Glenn Fabry, Simon Bisley, Judson Huss, Brian Froud, Michael Whelan, all had a real impact on me in my early teens. I'm still blown away by their work to this day. 

You were self taught - But did you attend college and, if so, what did you study while you were there?

I went straight from school to Bournemouth college to study graphic design but that was because it was the only course at the time that had an illustration module. I discovered that the course just wasn’t for me and lasted a bit over a year. I enjoyed the small amount of illustration we did, photography, life drawing, animation, things like that, but this was back in the day when the first computers were starting to be introduced into the workplace. Colleges and Uni’s had a ‘computer room’ with a handful of early Macs and a basic printer. Graphic design work at college revolved around a lot of type setting, point sizes and annoying mockups. Doing paragraphs of fake magazine text (body copy / “lorum ipsum”) by hand with a point scale was not fun!

You spent a number of years creating commercial work, what do you think was the best work you did commercially?  The worst?

I don’t know what my best commercial work was but my favourite was doing a portrait of Kate Middleton, just before she married Prince William and became the Princess of Wales. It was a commission for the Daily Telegraph Magazine and was their first ever illustrated cover and although it's not my ‘best’ work, I'm really happy I got to do that! The worst would be a book cover illustration I just wasn’t into, the job dragged on thanks to the client changing their mind a lot, interference from the AD, CD and author - all had differing ideas... it just became a nightmare job I wished I hadn’t taken on.

Did you work any jobs that weren't art related?  If so, what were they and what were they like?

After I left college I spent some time trying to make a career in illustration, but way back then it was so much harder to get your work out there and I just couldn’t make it work. I did a number of day jobs, from working as a carpenter's mate on a farm to retail sales in clothing and footwear stores, but my favourite was working in a couple of record stores. My wife and I actually met while we worked in the same record store!

Circling back to being self-taught: How disciplined were you?  Did you have a routine?

I've always drawn and painted from as far back as I can remember but when I got my first pc so I could learn Photoshop and Corel Painter (which was late 1999) I was working in retail. I would spend a good few hours after work experimenting each day, reading anything I could find and looking for basic tutorials online (which was painful in the early days on a 56k modem, there were so few resources!). I became interested in web design and taught myself hand coding html and apps like Fireworks and Dreamweaver, again, after work and weekends - and got my first real design jobs from there.

What would you do differently during those formative years, if you could teach yourself to draw again?

Funnily enough, back when I was at college and we were shown the campus computers - I really didn’t think that they would take over like they did! I was a staunch advocate of traditional art and dismissed computers as a bit of a fad, not ever imagining how they would shape our world. It's worth looking at Photoshop 1.1 (which was what we had on campus), people were literally just doing basic things with text, simple photo editing, etc. Digital painting was still at a point where there were digitisers with pens with optical cables, expensive hardware and basic software. If I could go back, I would smack myself in the head and say ‘pay attention!’

Where does the influence of the macabre, the magical, et al come from in your work?

I don’t know where it comes from, it's just something that’s always been in my life. I've always read books of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, folklore, comics etc and it’s certainly shaped my work for as long as I can remember.

You were very influenced by comics as a child, did you ever have any of your own that you created?

I attempted to do a comic once when I was about 18(?) - I don’t remember much about it now but I created about 10 pages or so - it was dark, both visually and in tone. I remember a few of the panels more than the story, mainly because I did it all with pastel pencils and I couldn’t get things as detailed as I wanted. Years later I did a one page comic for a friend of mine for her birthday, a poor joke based on a 2000 AD comic strip, “Anderson, PSI Division.” At least I did that in pen and ink but it was still really bad!

I know a multitude of your pieces are part of different series you've developed, but I'm curious: Have you developed a universe that all your work exists in?  For example: Are there laws and do you develop storylines between subjects as you're creating? The women with reflective eyes..?

The majority of my works after 2018 have been imagined in my own Dark Kingdom universe. My own world building project I created when I started my Patreon. I wanted a way to explore all sorts of characters and narratives beyond the portraiture I had mainly been doing before. That’s still my main focus, of course, but this world is where I base most things now. There is a certain order to things, but  primarily I concentrate on the characters inhabiting this realm, I broke it down to 3 main types: Shades, Demons, and Fallen. All the Fallen are female, Demons are male. The defining feature of the Fallen is their glowing eyes - (the pupil, not the iris) and the wounds on their backs from the loss of their wings.

If there's a story there, for all of it, please tell me you're writing it all down?

Ha, I have notes all over the place for this project! I've created basic rules/laws, character traits etc. I really need to collate everything into one coherent document at some point!

When working traditionally earlier in your career, what was your favourite medium to work with?

I loved drawing with normal graphite from an early age and enjoyed dip pen and ink, but when I started painting I used acrylic. I got my first airbrush when I was 8 and just used diluted tube acrylic for a long time. I moved on to little jars of liquid acrylic when airbrushing in my teens but stuck with tube acrylics the entire time I painted traditionally. I've used water based oils before but really wish I had used normal oils at some point.

How and when did you discover digital painting?

I saw one of the very first digitisers in a documentary back in 1984 called “Painting with Light.” It had David Hockney doing the first real digital painting with what was essentially the forerunner to Microsoft Paint. I watched it with my dad and we were both amazed by it, it was ground breaking stuff. Later when I went to college the animation department had the exact same kit, it was a pen connected by a long optical cable to what looked like a big rack server! This thing cost 40K! A year later they upgraded to a newer version and the machine had shrunk so it could be moved on a trolley but the price had doubled! Just nuts looking back on it. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t start using a computer till 1999, it was after I had come across a magazine showcasing the early versions of Corel painter and I discovered that we now had small, inexpensive pen tablets. That was it for me, it totally changed my life.

How has your painting set up changed over the years, as far as software and tablets?  

In terms of painting, to be honest it hasn’t changed too much. I've gone from painting almost exclusively in Corel Painter to Photoshop and Rebelle, and changed from a purely PC setup to a purely Mac one. Really it's been a case of seeing what works for me and upgrading things when I see a real benefit in doing so. One thing that’s changed over the years is that I've gone from using photo ref, both online and shot myself (hiring models, etc.) to creating pretty much all my ref for paintings in 3d. I use Blender, Zbrush, Daz, and Marvelous Designer to create most things in a 3D space - rendering assets out or creating an entire scene as ref for my painting. It's just another skillset that I find enjoyable, if you’re shooting a live model the process of finding a model, clothing, props, lighting, actually taking good photos, etc., was something I always found problematic and somewhat stressful in some cases. Now I just make what I want!

What are you using currently?

For the last few years I've been using a maxed out 27” 5k iMac, last of the Intel CPUs. It's a good work station and handles most things well and it has a great display. When I first started painting digitally I went with a Wacom Intuos tablet, primarily so I could maintain my posture (I have a spinal condition and posture is something I have to be aware of). This year I decided to go with a pen display and got a 19” 4K XP-pen model which has been great so far. The best thing about it is the size, it's similar to my Intuos and can be moved around the desk and have the keyboard on one side. I can also turn the display off and use it just like an Intuos - great for when I'm not actually painting! 

Tell us about your Patreon and what we can expect if signing up?

My Patreon was originally intended to just be a place for me to concentrate on my Dark Kingdom project but over the last few years and I've become so disillusioned with social media, I basically post everything I do there. I share my works in progress for everything, commissions, gallery shows, my Dark Kingdom project of course. I create 3 studies each month, available as reward prints on the physical reward tiers, but even on the lowest tier - prints can be requested and bought on a one off basis. Patrons basically get to see everything I do before anyone else and going by how the socials have gone - it may be the only place to see anything now!

Ever plan on releasing any of your custom paint brushes or pens?

It's not something I've ever really considered, I use a handful of brushes regularly and they really aren’t anything special. I suppose if enough people were interested I would put a pack together, one for Photoshop and one for Rebelle.

Waaay back in 2012, I asked you about what the most frustrating part of creating art is and you answered that it isn't so much the creating, it's getting people to take digital work as seriously as traditional.  Has this changed in the almost 15 years since?

Yeah I think things have changed for the better in that regard. In pretty much every field, digital art is completely accepted and in some cases - actually required to meet workflow and deadlines. I still think, however, that the gallery / collector’s market still has a way to go. In that one field, it's all about making something unique and for digital artists this poses a few issues. Attitudes have certainly changed but the gallery scene is still difficult if you work digitally. I count myself very fortunate to have been able to show my work in galleries!

Have you experienced anyone claiming your work is AI yet?  Did any of those things steal your work to model? (I'm not sure of the terminology).

Urgh, generative AI is a nightmare. Initially, like a lot of artists (especially digital artists) I was really interested in this new tech, I got in on the early beta of Stability and Midjourney and had a quick go at trying to generate stuff but like most things, the initial results were really bad and although I was thinking about ideation, etc., it just left me cold. (Much like NFTs) But as a technology I was still interested and kept an eye on what was happening. Then one day I saw what people were doing, using AI to create ‘art’ based on other artists' work. If this had been just artists from antiquity or long dead artists I wouldn’t really have thought much about it but these people were using prompts of living artists.  Then one day I saw a video on youTube of a guy showing the latest version of Midjourney and along with the names of people I know, my name was also used as a prompt. I couldn’t believe it. I looked into how these AIs were being made and learnt about the scraping that these people were doing with no thought for the people whose work they were using and that was it. I haven’t changed my mind about gen AI since. And yes, I've had people say stuff like ‘what prompts did you use’ or ‘looks like AI’ … it's a depressing situation. 

Outside of the studio, what are your hobbies?

I love movies, I spend a lot of time watching films and yeah, a lot of fantasy, sci-fi and horror! A couple of years ago my daughter and I also took up archery which has been great. We both shoot barebow primarily on an indoor range but we also have some space to be able to shoot at home weather permitting.

Out of all the Supersonic Invitationals you participated in (I think all of them except the first year -- because I was too intimidated to ask you at the time), did you have a favourite piece you created?

"The Serpents Tongue" still remains one of my favourite pieces I've painted. It was one of the first I created from my Dark Kingdom project, not only was I happy with the way it came out (which is not always the case) but it got a great reaction from people which is always a great feeling!

"The Serpents Tongue" by Tom Bagshaw.