Steven Seagull Action Hero

I'm thrilled that my latest book, Steven Seagull Action Hero, is out in the world just waiting to be read.

It's about Steven who's an ex-cop but his partner, a goldfish called Mac, needs him back on the force for one last case.

As a little celebration I've made a 'How to Draw Steven' worksheet so you too can draw seagull cops.

Steven Seagull is out now and if you like you can buy a copy here.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The Doughnut of Doom

Recently I've been drawing a lot of panicked food. This is why: 

Haunted Farm window painting

In aid of Books are my Bag I was asked by Red Lion Books in Colchester to come and paint their windows. It being near Halloween I chose a Haunted Farm theme and this is how it turned out:

Book Signing

I’m having a book launch for Haunted Farm with my friend and nemesis Matty Long and his book Super Happy Magic Forest. Everyone is welcome. There’ll be book signing and most importantly free wine AND cake.

The Mystery of the Haunted Farm is out!

 

My new book, THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED FARM, has just been published! If you like ghostbusting pigs, zombie ducks and the odd Frankenhorse in your picture books then this is the book for you. You can get your very own copy here.

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 4: THE BEAST

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 4: THE BEAST

A bit of a mysterious monster this time. If you want to find out what THE BEAST really is it's all revealed in The Mystery of the Haunted Farm which is out tomorrow!

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 3: Mummy Goats

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 3: Mummy Goats

This next monster spotted down on the Haunted Farm is perhaps not the scariest but you’ve got to give them marks for effort. If you want to know what on earth is going on with these goats you can pre-order the book here.

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 2: Donkula

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 2: Donkula

A bit of bonus content from The Mystery of the Haunted Farm which is out on Friday and available from here.

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 1: Zombie Ducks.

Haunted Farm Field Notes No 1: Zombie Ducks.
You can spot A LOT of these in the book, which can be purchased here.

Three Pigs Ghost Hunting Agency

My new book THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED FARM published by Nosy Crow is out on Friday. To celebrate, every day until Friday I'll be posting field notes made by the Three Pigs Ghost Hunting Agency, stars of the story, about some of the strange and frankly confusing ghosts and monsters found on the farm. Watch this space for number 1...

You can pre-oder the book here.

The Mystery of the Haunted Farm: Advance copies!

Here's a few sneak peeks of my advance copies of Haunted Farm. It's out on the 4th September and you can get it from here and all other good bookshops.

The Easter Bunny's Egg Factory

It's nearly Easter so it's time to unveil the (nearly) finished Easter Bunny's Egg Factory.

Ever wondered where chocolate eggs come from? Well the Easter Bunny is an industrialist tyrant who employes a load of chickens make them in a slightly bizarre manner.

Happy Easter!

Summer Reading Challenge 2015

Nuts in Space is on the list for the Summer Reading Challenge 2015. Hoorah!

More info here.

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.

Over Christmas I drew...

A ghost cow getting hit in the face.

Goats wrapping themselves in toilet roll.

The Marrow of Doom.

A farmer escaping from a particularly terrifying shower.

Gentlemen Thieves

Had enough of cute penguins this Christmas? Then these are the guys for you. 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Elys' Top 8 Fish that are Hard to Draw

I had to do some observational drawing at the Sealife Centre for a currently secret book that involves a lot of, well, fish. After an only moderately traumatic outing where multiple children shouted ‘MUMMY THAT LADY IS DRAWING!’ at me I’ve compiled my list of Elys’ Top 8 Fish that are Hard to Draw. It’s a list of 8 because I’ve only got 8 drawings that are fit for the internet.

8 Lionfish: There's just too many bits sticking out of them so I decided this was not a good fish to start with and went to the cafe.

7 Cleaner shrimps: Too many legs. And they're all over the place. It was deeply confusing.

6 Octopus: Too shy. Whenever I position myself by it's tank to draw it would swim off and hide elsewhere.

5 Wolffish: Weird skin. It's texture was a combination of rotting fruit, old people and evil which is apparently impossible to render under pressure with a coloured pencil whilst children point at you.

4 Blue fish who's name I've forgotten: They were just..so..boring. They didn't move so I wandered off.

3 Spider Crab: It's face was simply crazy.

2 Rays: They don't stop moving and are pretty flat. I was drawing them side on for a while and came out with a lot of single grey lines.

1 Loggerhead Turtles: They have a sense of melancholy about them and I couldn't figure out which colour expressed that best. So I just used brown.