More Tea Drinking Monsters!

I had a couple of creature sketches and didn't quite know what to do with them...

Everybody loves tea, right? 

x

Jungle Book

I recently did this cover for Oxford University Press's new release of Children's Book Classics!

I was very honoured to be chosen to illustrate The Jungle Book, as it was one of my favourites as a small child!

They wanted the cover to feature the tiger Sherkhan (no complaints here, we all know how I love a good tiger!!) with a very graphic approach, so I created the illustration below, with lots of boldness and a smattering of texture...which luckily they were very happy with! 

Thanks to Dynamo for sending this project my way :)

You can buy the book on Amazon for a cool £3.99!

Inside you'll also find an interview in which I sound VERY dorky...and I also feel the urgent need to just emphasise how Frozen is no longer my favourite film! I overdosed on Frozen! It needs to be locked away in a dark cupboard until such a time when I no longer spontaneously burst into theatrical song whenever I hear the sentence 'Do you want to build a snowman?'

Frog the Barbarian!

Yay, the next Legend of Frog book is out! 

Ps: Guy Bass is a legend :)

Get yours from online or most high-street bookshops!

It's super crazy and funny and silly and full of wonderful critters like Kroakans and Bragons!

x

Chameleon

Every time I do a comic convention, I add to this picture! It started out as just a face, then the chameleon and then swirls of hair. It will expand and become an epic piece year by year!

Tea Monsters

The Cardiff Comic Expo in March came along more quickly than I had anticipated...so in order to create some fun new artwork snappish, I came up with the idea of selling individually wrapped Organic tea bags accompanied with little collector cards (I was a huge fan of Pokemon cards when I was a little girl)

... And so the Tea Monsters were born!

Each card shows the 'personality' of the tea, and I'm happy to say that the little things were a big success! Below is the range as it stands:

Green Tea

Peppermint

Rooibos

Liquorice

Echinacea

Lemon + Ginger

It made me really want to start up my own little Monster Tea company, and got super excited about eco-packaging and creating really funky flavours! 

However, I couldn't possibly compete with the incredible Giants of Tea such as Pukka and Tea Pigs...not at the moment anyhow! 

So for now Tea Monsters shall remain a sweet little concept until I can think of exactly what to do with them :) 

Selfie

Got a bit bored today so painted a selfie :)

I found a brush set I really really like, created by illustrator Matt Heath. Download for free here!

I think I should try and do one of these quick sort of paintings once a day (not necessarily a selfie) ...it's really good practise! 

Happy Monday people 

x

dROAR

A couple of years ago I did a little project to raise money for WWF, where I supported their campaign to save wild tigers from extinction by drawing a tiger every day for a month and encouraging my friends to do the same. It was a really fun thing to do and it got quite a nice response, and I still keep adding little tiger-inspired pics to the collection now and again.

After recently working on a How To Draw Manga book for Arcturus, I used some of the characters I'd drawn, changed them a bit and added tigery colours to them.

Kids book fun

These were some quick art-style ideas for a publisher looking to create a new range of children's books

It was a really fun little project to be a part of, lots of artists getting their ideas / interpretations together!

x

Time Hunters

Since I've recently found out there's a Time Hunters website ( Check it out! www.time-hunters.com ), I think posting some of my favourite images from the first series is well overdue!

INITIAL CHARACTER SKETCHES:

Cleo

Isis

Tom

BOOK 1:

Isis and Tom wearing 'BIG BUM' advertising sashes (teehee)

Cleo being bad-ass

When I designed the first three covers originally, Isis was in it. However the publisher informed us after the first two had been coloured up that the marketing/sales department thought having a girl on the cover would put boys off. Removing her was a shame as, in my opinion, having Isis in it balanced the composition really well - plus she was an important part of the story! Still, I'm learning that what I think is best in terms of the artwork isn't always best in terms of 'the whole picture' ;)

This third cover was coloured up by my lovely studio colleague Ailin, and then finished up slightly by me. The deadlines for the covers, collector cards and insides were too tight for me to handle all of it myself. Therefore some of the covers for these books were done by me alone (books 1,2,5 and 11)  although I was a helped out at colour stage. Similarly for pencils, I was helped out at the 'pencil rough' stage for a few of the books. It's just what happens when you're busy with lots of projects and trying to create a children's book series on a schedule - I'm lucky to be part of a studio at times like that. I really think all the combined effort had a massively successful result- an entertaining series of books that educate kids about important moments in history!

Thanks again to Dynamo for being an awesome studio!

BOOK 2:

Roughs by the lovely David Neal, neatened up by moi:

BOOK 3:

Roughs by super-sweet Steve Sims

my inks/finals:

And just a quick few pics from books 4:

5:

6: