FROM ARTIST TO AUTHOR

Tom Kidd is following in the footsteps of James Gurney and Tony DeTerlizzi, and painting his own page turner…

- Tom Kidd

There’s a saying that we all have a book inside us dying to get out. For artists, this is doubly true. After all, once a book is written, who’s going to illustrate it? Whether it’s James Gurney’s Dinotopia or Tony DeTerlizzi’s The Spiderwick Chronicles, artists are drawn to adding words to their art.

For Tom Kidd, a traditional illustrator, it’s about focusing on the classic dilemma of what comes first: words or art? His book, Gnemo – A Novel Tale of Airships, Adventure & Exploration, is still in development. The paint is still wet on many of the illustrations. But Tom has exclusively shared his draft with ImagineFX, and it’s a breathless blend of steampunk, fantasy and elegantly depicted scenes of airships and brassy worlds of steam and iron. In a few brush strokes, Tom takes us into his imagination. The words surround his art, a guide to this exuberant new universe.

WORDS OR PICTURES?

So what comes first? The words or the art? “It’s very much a shared effort,” says Tom. Although an acclaimed painter and illustrator, the artist has spent time writing, too. “I love coming up with stories,” he says, clarifying he’s “written dozens, even sold one short story to a collection and won a minor award for another”.