GIF practice and GIF goal

So I have a friends birthday coming up, and see this as an ample opportunity to practice my knowledge of using photoshop to make a GIF (Note: the subject matter of the gif is an inside joke so i wont bother to explain it to you)

Yeah, here it is, a nice slab of dumb. Enlarged the image gradually between frames to have it seem as though it was zooming in, and all drawn elements were added with the paint tool on separate layers. Took me two minutes and will probably save me having to buy  a gift, good times.

GIF artist links

So for my first gif, i present the work of Phazed, a GIF artist who pretty much creates works that do what the above image is doing, presenting a illustrated person, or character with strobing rainbows coursing through their body. Personally i think its quite ghastly, and have grown a trite tired with the aesthetic, seen as each work of his is pretty much the same, but am considering a coursing colour spiral for one of my ideas, so i will have to try and avoid inspiring those feelings with my own work. I dunno, just thought this was worth a mention, especially seen as my actual gif artist link... artist, is actually unknown.

So this ones really simple, and if you think about it, doesn't really need to be a GIF. The image itself is static, with the colour strobing, as if the lighting of the room is on its way out. Its this little touch that grabs my interest though. Now its absolutely a solid work of art, lots of lovely detail, but the light just completes the atmosphere. I feel like i'm actually in a shady arms shop, and despite a character existing within the space, it is without a doubt the space that is the real character. So whilst i wont even pretend to hope to create an atmosphere like this, i will absolutely be working on an outcome that concentrates on a room and its lighting.

For a final link this work comes from Bryan Konietzko, another work that is super simple in idea but still excites me, its all character in this one, with a sweet design making it the success that it is.The work was created with the artist taking reference from Religious symbolism, i shouldn't be afraid to splice elements myself.