Riding the Brolly Rail
This is my first colour illustration based on The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend – the second Nevermoor novel. It’s …
Winter temple
My new year’s resolution is to bring some more colour to my work. I’ve found that just adding colour to my black …
Morrigan Crow (and brolly)
A quick drawing inspired by Wundersmith – the second Morrigan Crow book by Jessica Townsend which I was given for Christmas. It’s …
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 …
Abandoning the Hispaniola
I bought a pad of sepia paper on a whim and decided to use it to add an extra layer to my …
The Hobbit. Journey to Rivendell
I’ve just moved back to colour pencils and it’s been one of those “where have you been all my life?!” moments. When …
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 …
