Clockwork Dragon: Dragon Design

Next up in 'The Making of The Clockwork Dragon' is Dragon Design. This was tricky.

My original design for the clockwork dragon (see below) was a bit too finished looking. The story says that the two kids pretty much built it overnight out of bits of scavenged armour so maybe it would be a good idea to see some of that armour in the dragon? So for the sake of research I went to the Herstmonceux Medieval Fair (never have I seen so much mead in one place) where there was no end of reenactors strutting out in armour for me to draw.

Armed with my new found knowledge I added a lot more knives to the dragon and I think it was much improved.

Flamethrottle, the villain of the piece, was a lot easier. I wanted him to look like he'd let himself go a bit and stopped going to the gym, wasn't a frequent bather and if he spoke he'd have the voice of Alan Rickman. I can only hope I've achieved all those things. 

You can buy The Clockwork Dragon here.

The finished Clockwork Dragon from the book.

The first design for the Clockwork Dragon.

A page from my sketch of observation drawings of slightly mad reenactors.

The final design for the Clockwork Dragon.

The finished Flamethrottle from the book.

My first sketch of Flamethrottle.

Clockwork Dragon: Designing the Kingdom of Rodney

2 days to go until until The Clockwork Dragon is out! To celebrate I’ve created a full colour map of 'The Kingdom of Rodney' where the book takes place.

A big part of the brief was to create a detailed, believable world for the story to take place in. Author Jonathan Emmett and I spend a long time working out the geography of Rodney, the layout of 'Cranktown' and the style of architecture. Actually a lot of the buildings are heavily based on a trip I took to Bavaria to see this insane castle http://bit.ly/1F1tyAE called Neuschwanstein.

Jonathan has even written a full blown visitor's guide to the The Kingdom of Rodney here.

Oh, and you can buy the book here!

Working out the layout of 'Cranktown' in relation to the castle.

Lizzie's Armourer's shop, my favourite building.

Early design of the shop.

Clockwork Dragon: The Cover that Never Was

THE CLOCKWORK DRAGON illustrated by me and written by Jonathan Emmett is out on Thursday! In the run up to publication I'll be posting previously unseen Clockwork Dragon material. 

Today it's The Cover that Never Was. There's often a lot of development and redesigning that goes into a book cover and this one was no different. We went through a couple of versions for clockwork dragon but I think the final black version is certainly best.

You can pre order Clockwork Dragon here.