Hamish grew up near Glastonbury, Somerset, surrounded by legends, myths and folktale. He started his first webcomic when he was 15 and was always trying to work out how to get his stories told.
He went on to study Animation and Illustration at Kingston University, where he focused on animation, and now works full time as an animation director for Blink Ink. Hamish maintains that he’s not so bothered with what medium he’s using, as long as he can tell stories which mean something more than just jokes or entertainment.
He has worked on animated projects for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney, but before working with Nobrow he has only ever self-published.
To find out a little more about her work, we asked Hamish the following questions…
What inspires your work?
00s flash cartoons. 90s Simpsons. 80s Manga. 70s horror films. 60s monster movies. Musicals. Moons. Nintendo games. Thinking on the toilet. My friend’s work. The people who like reading my work. Trashy ghost documentaries. Janelle Monae. The film Speed Racer. Old Marvel comics. David Bowie. The Wizard of Oz books. I’m a very easily inspired person. I tend to see something and instantly want to make something like that. Which means I always fear my work ends up being very derivative. But I’m reassured that my own spin and voice, makes my work unique enough in the end.
Tell us a bit about your process….
I wish I could plan things out a little better. I tend to toss concepts and images about in my head for ages and then when the deadline approaches, I kinda just splurge it all out from memory on the page. I don’t really sketch things out, I don’t tend to write very detailed scripts for my illustrations. But I can’t shut my brain off from thinking about all my different projects at once.
My process is very boring. I tend to just get a nice rough brush on photoshop, draw the lines, colour it and bam. Done. But maybe that comes from wanting to make stories before wanting to be an artist. I think I’m probably more of a writer then an artist and that’s something I’d like to head towards being. I’m very envious of artists who actually HAVE a process.