After reading the topic for this round of blogs, I was at a bit of a loss because i was sure that everyone would come out with loads of really interesting stories about real world experiences they’ve had which inspired them to write something that is extraordinarily brilliant.

I usually come up with ideas by drawing out a character or landscape, and then thinking about why they are there and what they are doing…and this can develop into a happy story, a sad story, a complicated story etc.

Most of what influences me is subliminal, and predominately from film or television, as the worlds i like to create contain things that I haven’t had the chance to see first hand, or they just don’t exist at all.

Occasionally, however i see something that influences me to the point that I notice it, and notice the change in my work that it creates.

One such example was the series ‘Planet Earth’ by the BBC. (image below)

From the first time I saw the wide shots of the Earth’s largest waterfall,  the slow panning of the peaks of the Himalayas,  to the solitary polar bear navigating its way through the great expanse of the Arctic; I was hooked. I thought, ‘this looks amazing I want to draw it!’. I even made a book at university which was set in the Arctic (illustration below).

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When I saw the topic for the new DFB blog about comic misunderstandings, I thought, ‘Cool, that’s happened to me loads of times’.

The first thing that came to mind was something that happens quite frequently. My girlfriend is French and I am English; we both speak each other’s language quite well, but at certain times when I try and explain something to her, a word will come up that I don’t know in French. So I say it in English… she won’t understand it… so out of frustration I say it again, and again, and again… until eventually I give up. Just at that moment, pretty much every time, she’ll say ‘Oh, you mean…’  – followed by exactly the same word that I have just tried to get her to understand. The only difference is that she will say it with a French accent.

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