flannel animal

Here’s some new illustrations I did for Vulture this week.  It’s the big 5 ensemble summer movies as they would have fit in in high school.  This one for Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love is my favorite, I think.  Check out the rest here!

Concepts by Kyle Buchanan, Illustrations by Kyle Hilton (me)

Definitely the funnest assignment I’ve ever gotten, here’s a Hunger Games-inspired “Spot the Difference” game I did for Vulture.  Click here for the article.  (PS. There’s an answer key if you get stuck!)

Working on an illustration assignment revolving around The Hunger Games this week, so I’m reading a lot of this in between projects this weekend.  In similar news, there’s some stuff that’s potentially happening that I really want to share on here, but it’s too early to tell if any of it will pan out.  Regardless, some exciting opportunities have been developing as a result of the New York Times article and the feedback over the Downton Abbey dolls, and I can’t wait to share them with you if they end up working out.  It’s been a strange, busy couple of weeks and now I find myself fortunate enough to be doing the kind of work I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.  In short, I’m just really grateful at the moment.  

PS. Thanks to those of you that read this for letting me make this a place that I can share this kind of stuff.  And most of all thanks for all the support you guys have given me over the past year.  I don’t say enough that your enthusiasm about my work, whether paper dolls or other things, is always humbling, encouraging, and extremely appreciated.  

Doll #37
Katie Andrews, No Ordinary Family

A few weeks ago actress Autumn Reeser shared some really kind words about my paper dolls on Twitter and then tweeted that she’d love to have one made of one of her characters.  I instantly thought of Katie Andrews, easily one of the funniest and most lovable geeks on television.   She was sincerely my favorite part of No Ordinary Family, so it was a really cool honor to see the actress who played her say she enjoys my work.  So that said, this is a little thank you to Ms. Reeser for her kind words and for sharing my stuff with her fans.  (Plus, it was pretty fun getting to draw tiny X-Men stuff.) 

Downton Abbey Paper Dolls

Concepts by Willa Paskin, Illustrations by Kyle Hilton

This morning for me is almost as exciting as Christmas, as I get to share a project I’ve been working on this week.  Vulture was gracious enough to hire me to create four Downton Abbey paper dolls and they’re now up for downloading/printing.  I somehow managed to watch two seasons of this show (much to my wife’s enjoyment) in the span of a few days while working on these, and I have to say.  Not a bad show.

Click through to see the article and all four dolls.

I’ve been working on a few fun comics-based projects lately.  I hadn’t worked on a comic page in quite a while before these, so I was a little nervous, but once I got back into it I remembered how fun drawing a comic can be.  Comics are the culmination of everything I love about illustration.  There’s something so temporary, so disposable about comic pages.  Each panel can be slaved over, but in the end they’re only seen for maybe two seconds.  So each panel has to realize its unimportance, and instead just lend itself towards the whole of the page.  And black and white comic pages have this raw, unfinished feeling to them, like music recorded in a garage.  There’s so much room for mistakes to be embraced.  I don’t necessarily achieve any of those great things about comics when I work on a page, but I absolutely love the attempt, successful or not.  This page - an excerpt from a commissioned comic for a couple’s wedding - is a page I was particularly happy with today.

Doll #31
“The Driver”, Drive

Put together this illustration after seeing The Descendants this weekend.  Such a good movie. 

Doll #25
Dennis Reynolds, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Whew.  Now that the holidays are over and I’ve got a little more time on my hands, I’m going to dive back into more paper dolls, starting with finishing out the Always Sunny set I started.  Also, my new year’s resolution (among others) is to do these with a lot more regularity.  Once a week is my goal, so see you next week with a new Sunny doll.  Enjoy!

I’ve updated my Freelanced portfolio with a bunch of new things.  I really need to update my actual website to have this much stuff, but for now this will do.  Check it out if you have a minute, it just might help my profile’s rating if you do.

Also, new doll coming this week.  I took a short break from Always Sunny to do one of my favorite Quentin Tarantino characters.  I can’t wait to post it:)

Hate not being able to post recent work while I’m working on it, so here’s two pages of a comic I was writing earlier this year.  

Doll #11
Walter White, Breaking Bad