Tim and Bash is a relatively new webcomic series about a fireman who adopts a cute but rather unpleasant baby dragon. The comic follows the funny antics and adventures the couple has as Tim struggles to raise a fire-breathing pet. Tim’s goal is to train Bash for use in the fire service, but Bash has a long way to go… This week saw the release of the first of several live-action shorts featuring the real Tim and the beautifully animated CGI Bash.
The original inspiration for Tim and Bash came when my friend Andy Bashforth and I wanted to develop a new animation project. After years of working in the animation industry on films like Klaus, Space Jam 2, Sonic 2, and Disenchantment, we wanted to create something ourselves and see if we could turn it into a business. We felt there was a place in the TikTok/YouTube Shorts space for a high-quality CG character and we knew it had to be something that a lot of people would enjoy.
Dragons have been popular in stories for centuries, and have recently come back into fashion thanks to TV shows like How to Train Your Dragon and Game of Thrones. Dragons have always captured our imagination because their presence is indefinable and we feel there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to dragons that appear in films.
Credit: Time and Bash
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The dynamic between Tim and Bash revolves around the idea that no matter how obnoxious, dangerous, or embarrassing our pets can be, they just need to look at us with those big round eyes to make us remember that it’s all worth it. We wanted to take this idea to the extreme by making Bash the most destructive and adorable pet you can have. Tim is doomed to a life of selfless slavery, and Bash knows it.
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The biggest challenge we faced in developing Tim & Bash was achieving the quality we wanted in the time frame we had. Unfortunately, in the art world, everything takes longer than it should. We never wanted to compromise on quality and encountered technical setbacks as we delved into areas we had never explored, such as creating believable fur and fire simulations. This project tested our ability to keep coming back and improving things until we achieved the quality we wanted.
