Merry Kittenmas!

This was day 4 of the SCBWI-BI advent calendar competition! The rules were black and white plus one colour on the theme …

The Phoenix and the witch

There’s a story in here somewhere… Now that I’ve finally got a new laptop, I made a point of giving digital colouring …

The Hobbit : Smaug

My design for the front cover of The Hobbit. I’ve re-used Smaug’s wings for Arthur’s cloak in another drawing – for this …

The Hobbit : Gollum

Gollum was my choice for the rear cover design for the Hobbit, though I may shrink him down a little to allow …

The Hobbit : Beorn

Working in pencils (on what turned out to not be the best choice of paper), Beorn was my second choice of a …

Into battle

I’d never intended to follow the medieval romantic aesthetic of the Arthurian tales – at least in terms of costume design. Certainly …

Arthur and Mordred

  I’d already drawn the aftermath of Camlann but really wanted to draw a scene from the battle itself. I’ve been developing …

Tristan and Iseult

The classic Arthurian tragedy, though not originally part of the saga. I wanted this to be anunpleasant, tragic romance, but not brutally …

Guinevere and Lancelot

Certainly a bit more YA than my usual illustrations, but myths and legends are all sex ‘n’ violence. The sword symbolism and …

Crow’s Dinner

Crow’s Dinner is a short story written for my daughter by my Dad that I’ve illustrated. It’s a rather grim tale with …

Jim Hawkins and Israel Hands

Another memorable scene in the book and an obvious choice to illustrate – I’m not sure if this scene would be allowed …

Blind Pew

Blind Pew always left an impression on me – as a villain, he’s a brilliant and quite understated character and probable the …

Treasure hunting

I hadn’t done a ‘framed’ piece for a while and this seemed a good opportunity seeing as I couldn’t get Flint’s skeelton …

Meeting Long John Silver

An experiment in a character-driven piece rather than an action scene, as well as allowing me to play with creating distance using …

Confronting the hunt

The last of my Hunt of Smoke and Shadow series, this is an illustration from the closing chapters of Nevermoor and I …

Escaping the hunt

What do you need most in an emergency? How about a giant clockwork spider powered by magic to escape in? Yep, that …

The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow

Nevermoor : The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend has been a recent source of inspiration for me. The Hunt of …

Hotel Deucalion

One of my illustrations inspired by Nevermoor : The trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. I completed a couple of silhouette …

Airship

I followed up the Northern Lights drawings with this digital piece. Based on the airships in the story, I wanted an excuse …

Drawing Excalibur

I’ll be writing a longer blog post in regards to Undiscovered Voices, but this is the work that got me to the …

Camlann

I completed two pictures from the Arthurian legends for Undiscovered Voices 2018, and this was the companion piece to my competition entry. …

The stone table breaks

My second Narnia piece and another painted silhouette. I’ve toned down the bright yellow in the sky and I’m glad that the …

Edmund and the White Witch

Drawn – appropriately – over the Christmas holidays, I’d originally planned to illustrate scenes from Voyage of the Dawn Treader which is …

Lyra

I returned to Northern Lights because it gave me an excuse to try a silhouette and cityscape combination – another experiment at …

Iorek Byrnison

An evening holiday drawing that earned enough good feedback to make it into my portfolio. I got some praise for the pen …

Toad hog!

My second Wind in the Willows piece. As well as captuing the action, I also wanted enough static detail to expand on …

Ratty and Mole

A departure from my fantasy work, this was one of a series inspired by the first Undiscoverd Voices 2018 brief. I wanted …

At the bonfire

Another dark fantasy piece. This one was directly inspired by the Dark Souls series of videogames – itself inspired by the Fighting …

Brigand

My monster illustrations were a trip back to my childhood spent reading Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s ‘Fighting Fantasy’ series. The silhouette …

Red Riding Hood sets out

My final Red Riding Hood piece for now. This is close in composition (though it has fewer frames) to the drawing that …

Railhead – The Damask Rose

I’m still kicking myself that I met Philip Reeve and completely forgot to bring my copy of Railhead along to get signed. …

Quidditch

The last of my Harry Potter images for now. This was another earlier piece that I drew to test out ideas for …

Perseus and Medusa

Intended as an interior book illustration, my intention with this was to play around with perspective using silhouettes. The scene shows Perseus …

Expecto Patronum!

I returned to Harry Potter for an action based scene to illustrate. This one gave me the opportunity to play around properly …

History of Magic

Another silhouette piece and an illustration from Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. I chose this scene because it’s character based …

Theseus and the Minotaur

Preparing for the 2017/18 Undiscovered Voices Competition (yes, I’m giving it another go), I decided to move my work in a new …

Going climbing

As well as my myths and legends illustrations, I also had a go at drawing some other children’s book scenes with brush …

Baba Yaga

One of the last of my Inktober works, I used my ‘Once upon a time’ poster as the jumping off point as …

Little Red and the wolf

My final Red Riding Hood ink drawing for the time being. This was my experiment with coloured inks that I’d forgotten I’d …

Red Riding Hood Revisited

I revisited the Red Riding Hood story after completing my previous pen and ink drawing from the story. I much prefer the …

The soggy bad wolf

I was inspired by ‘Inktober’ last year, and started to work on a series of brush and ink illustrations. This was one …

Witch

One of my Inktober fairytale sketches. I was exploring ways of adapting the style that I’d been playing around with for …don’t …

Hogwarts

Now for sale on Etsy! Oh god, I’m officially a Harry Potter fan artist / tribute artist/ whatever… I put a hold …

New York, New York!

Now for sale on Etsy! Okay, it’s eBoy influenced, but it’s also got the Flatiron building and the Empire State, and the …

London Calling 2!

Now for sale on Etsy! I’ve returned to pixel art, at least for the time being, following a portfolio review. And I’ve …

This is My Dream

This is My Dream is the 2017 Tower Hamlets Creative Writing Competition, and our first to get Arts Council funding (thanks to …

Troll

Edited to add colour. Trolls and ogres are some of the most varied fantasy creatures in terms of artists’ and writers’ interpretations. …

Red Riding Hood

My entry for the Tommie Depaola 2016 award. I wanted Red Riding Hood to have an eastern European look to her. The …