www.gilestimms.com

Angie and I are getting married on July 22nd, 2010 :)

The above is the comic book styled wedding invitation that I made and had printed through lulu. Hand drawn and colored in Photoshop. The illustrations for the mini comic book invitation were inspired by the work of one of my favorite illustrators, Nate Williams.

If you’d like an actual printed book of the invitation you can buy a copy on lulu: Wedding Invitation – Giles and Angie.

My entry for Illustration Friday, ‘Fast.’ Created in Photoshop and After Effects.

Detail

Detail

I approached the design of the illustration as though I were going to animate it. I drew the cut-out character, props and scenery on paper in pencil, and then pen and ink – archer, bow, arrow, tree etc. Once scanned into the computer I colored and textured the drawings in Photoshop and then imported all the cut-outs into After Effects where I set up 2 scenes; one of the archer in the forest, the other of the arrows. Once the scenes were complete I rendered them out and brought them back into Photoshop to create the final comic-styled illustration.

I might do a series of these, ‘Monster and Me’ comics or narratives. Pen and ink and photoshop.

This is the layout drawing for something I’m working on. I have an idea for a Civil War inspired comic strip or narrative. I was going to ink this in pen, but I don’t like the composition. I will finish inking and colouring in photoshop.

We moved and are all settled in again. This is the final move before we move again in the autumn. Say what you will about Ikea, but their furniture is really great for breaking down into small, moveable bits and it made our move a lot easier (though it was still stressful). One thing that is always good about moving is that it forces us (me) to pare down our (my) stuff. I have more things than Angie as I tend to be a bit of a pack rat and sometimes keep things for sentimental reasons or because I think something will be a good resource for a drawing etc. For example, I have a small, but growing, collection of dead insects and insect bits that I have found on walks. During this last move I tried really hard to be ruthless about my possessions and got rid of quite a few boxes of stuff. I did get to keep my insect bits though.

During the move I listened quite a bit to the Super Furry Animals, a brilliant Welsh band who even sing in Welsh. When I was listening to them I started to put images to some of the songs and decided to create one of the series of images in a comic strip format. These images go along with the song, Hello Sunshine, off the album Phantom Power. The images were drawn with Sakura pens on Bristol Board (2 boards, at 9″ x 12″).

Here are the lyrics to Hello Sunshine by Super Furry Animals:

So hard to say goodbye
Meaning it today
I’ve said goodbye before
Leaving you alone
By the sea
So hard to say goodbye

Hello sunshine
Come into my life

In honesty it’s been a while
Since we had reason left to smile
Hello sunshine
Come into my life

I’m a minger
You’re a minger too
So come on minger
I want to ming with you

In honesty it’s been a while
Since we had reason left to smile
Hello sunshine
Come into my life

You’re not so innocent
You’re a disgrace to your country
If you fled a million miles
I’d chase you for a day
If I could be bothered

Hello sunshine
Come into my life

To learn more about Super Furry Animals, visit the official website at www.superfurry.com. They also have an informative entry in wikipedia, that can be found at www.wikipedia.org.

Here’s the opening adventure of Marmaduck.

This is my first finished comic style illustration of a character from my sketchbook. I tried to keep things simple , hence no text bubbles and only four panels. I have always loved Double Fine’s comics (go to www.doublefine.com to view) and thought that their four strip panel sets were a good minimum number. Despite keeping things simple it was harder than I thought, but I really had fun creating the Marmuduck panels and it was an excellent new challenge for me. If anyone has any advice on how I can improve my comic skills for the next set, please let me know.

I was also inspired by Pete Fowler’s great little comic strips from his ‘Ken’s Mysterious World’ series. I’ve included a scan below.

I actually created this comic panel for my redesigned web site (which you can view at www.gilestimms.com, though it’s still being updated). I thought that it might make the home page more interesting to have something different every so often, hence the comic. Hopefully I can create a new set every fortnight, especially if I keep things simple with the vector format.

Anyway, this was entirely created in Illustrator.