Watts

This is Watts. He's one half of Watts and Whiskerton. He's the main character in my new book Watts and Whiskerton: Buried Bones and Troublesome Treasure. Pearl (Whiskerton) is equally important, but Watts is a writer and he narrates each books for us.

Watts comes from a family of famous detectives but he's not sure if he wants to be a detective too. So when his parents venture off to investigate a case, Watts heads off to Whiskerton Manor for a holiday. There he befriends Pearl Whiskerton. She loves mysteries and persuades Watts to help her investigate a series of strange goings on.

Watts actually began life as Watson. I wanted to create a character in the tradition of Watson and Hastings, a slightly silly detective's assistant. In the story I was writing Watson was much older and through his investigation he met Pearl, who was young and smart and methodical, and much more likely to solve the case. I abandoned this idea quickly because what Pearl really needed was a friend to help her solve the case, someone as intelligent as she was. I realised they had to be the same age. And suddenly they made sense as a pair. 

We changed his name to Watts before the first draft was written. We wanted a W name to sit nicely with Whiskerton. My editor, Ella, suggested Walker because it had a nice dog themed link and I really liked it until I thought of Watts. I loved how it reminded me of light bulbs and bright ideas, and how his name sounded like a question. He is also the son of Mr and Mrs Watts so technically he's still a Watts' son. 

I can't find my earliest sketchbooks but here is a drawing from an abandoned early plot idea.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this scene is still in the first book, just changed a little. This was drawn in pencil and then scanned into my computer. I love drawing in pencil but I do spend a lot of time tidying the outlines. I decided to see if it was possible to get a pencil-like quality digitally since I had 128 pages to illustrate. Here's one of the first digital tests.

I was pleased with the way this turned out and decided to make my first book 100% digitally. It did save me a lot of time when I was drawing outlines. 

Another early test that I really liked had the characters with no outlines at all but I realised I had to draw the outline, colour the character and then remove the outline so I might as well save myself time and keep the outline. Here's a peek at the finished artwork.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Watts and Whiskerton: Buried Bones and Troublesome Treasure publishes on July 4th 2024 and is available for pre-order now by CLICKING HERE. Pre-orders really help authors because they show publishers and booksellers that there's interest in a book. And when it gets delivered you think, 'Ooh, a gift from my past self. How nice!'

The View From Here

This was my #colour_collective for this week. 

It's the view from my village woods across to the Black Isle.  I made this sketch sticking to the three colours I planned to use.  More and more I prefer to draw from life in my sketch book and only work from that image, as opposed to working from a photograph.  Sometimes I will take a photo for reference but, for me, a sketch really focuses in on what I noticed and what I liked about the scene in front of me.

When I got home I painted separations in black and coloured the image digitally.  Using a black layer for each colour means that it's hard to predict what the final image will look like.  I like the surprise of this.  I also like painting the layers because I'm not very good at it.  My brushwork isn't tidy and my hand isn't steady.  There's an element of it that I can't control and I really enjoy the results of that.

You can see below how layering them on top of one another starts to create the final image.  Colouring digitally does mean I can change things and you may notice that the big expanse of white water isn't in the separations.  That's because I painted it in the blue colour layer but removed it digitally as the image looked better without it.

I wasn't entirely happy with the result but after tweaking the colours and leaving it for a while, I much preferred it once I'd had some time away from it.  Some pictures are like that. 

Making Pigeon P.I.

Since my second picture book Pigeon P.I. is published in but two weeks, I thought I'd put together a little how-it-was-made.

Pigeon P.I. started life as a flash of inspiration.  I was working on ideas for my second book and I already had a pretty good one.  I wasn't sure if it was THE idea but I liked it.  With about a week to go before my meeting at Andersen Press I had an idea I was far more excited about: I was going to write a film noir picture book and call it Pigeon P.I.  It sounds so simple when you say it out loud but ideas are like that, they're exciting and instant.  It takes a lot of work to make them into something more.

Is it a mystery?  The words 'private investigator' should've been my first clue.

I started to draw using Humphrey Bogart as inspiration for Murray, my pigeon (apologies to Mr. Bogart)

The first Murray.  Sadly, 'you filthy corn husk' didn't make it in.

Faye Dunaway from 'Bonnie and Clyde' helped inspire my canary Vee.  Apologies to Ms. Dunaway but I wanted someone who looked great in hats and there's no denying that she does.

First sketch of Vee

One of many test drawings of Vee

A few more tests.  My art director Beccy and I spent a long time working on what made Vee look young and appealing.  We shortened her hair flick and really focused on her shape.   She was definitely the hardest character to get right.  

The final Vee

I didn't have a story yet but I had most of the characters and a world I wanted to build.  Most importantly I had an idea I was passionate about.  It was THE idea.  Here's some of the sketches I prepared for my meeting.

I make a lot of notes.

This neon colour test didn't make it in but I still like it.

 I was watching Chinatown at this point.





From the final book.

A little joke about a spin-off series

Take a peek under the dust jacket to meet Penguin P.I.

First sketch of the police, who nearly didn't make it when my first draft came in at 50 pages

Sadly the night watch don't feature.  They're biding their time.

 Luckily, the good folks at Andersen Press liked this idea too and we spent our meeting discussing character motivations and all things noir.  With all sorts of wisdom imparted, off I went to sit with my sketchbook to see if these characters really had a story to tell.  It's funny to look back and see how many stages a book goes through when you write it.

This pie-as-an-escape plan is one of my favourite drawings that never went anywhere

It's also amazing to see how much sticks.  One of my very first drawings has remained the whole way through as my first page, with pretty much the same first line.

Only I could think a pile of abandoned newspaper is a 'filing system'

Murray and his filing system

I'm pretty excited about the way this book turned out, it's very different to Life Is Magic but I think they've got some things in common, namely an excess of hand-lettering and background characters.

A note to myself

What I wanted to create was a satisfying mystery in picture book form, to pay homage to the detective books I've loved all my life but to make sure that I was writing it for a picture book audience, that this was a satisfying world and story in itself and not just a parody of something I loved.  I hope I've managed to do that.

Raccoons

With my second picture book finally finished I've been busily writing my third whilst waiting for other projects to begin.  Everything lately has been very much in a rough pencil drawn stage so it's been a while since I actually completed an image.  Today I just wanted to finish something, and these little chaps were waiting in my sketchbook.

Here are a few more raccoons from the same sketchbook...

Sneaky peek of sketches and whatnots

Since Life Is Magic is finally almost out I thought I'd share a few sketches and pics of the book in progress.

Original back cover sketch

Final back image

Case cover planning page

Case cover drawing

Finished cover

Initial frames sketch

The frames in action

Title page sketch

For more sneak peeks check out The Booksniffer's blog

You can watch the amazing trailer HERE

Life Is Magic publishes March 3rd and can be bought in all the regular places, lovely bookshops especially.   You can read more about the book here.

Life Is Magic - Cover

If anyone is counting (which I'm obviously not) then you'll be aware that my first picture book is published in March 2016 - which is still so far away!!!

The lovely Booksniffer did a cover reveal a few weeks back and I thought it was about time I put the cover up here.  So here it is in all its glory.

As you can see, it's published by the lovely people at Andersen Press who were very kind and let me draw on every available surface.  I can't show much more for now but I will say that the back cover is pretty sweet, and the super secret cover beneath this cover for the hardback is my absolute favourite.

Below are some of the cover sketches.  

This is a page of early sketches sent to my editor and art director.  We really brightened it up and added a few more mischievous rabbits but the overall idea isn't that far removed from the final image.    

There is a lot of hand lettering in the book.  Once the first page was finished I think I realised how important the lettering was, it really informed the look of the book for me so we wanted to carry that over onto the cover.  

Evidence that I'm left handed and have not yet learned how not to smudge an image

Favourite cover bunny

These bunnies do incredible work...or so we tell them

I haven't chronicled my epic star drawing yet but believe me I drew a lot of them.  Last count was something in the region of...65392...that's a lie, but there were a bunch.

You can pre-order Life Is Magic here or you can be very, very patient and buy it in a lovely bookshop.

Owl crazy

Like everyone else it seems I am also going owl crazy.  This is a lady I've been working on in my sketch book today.  She'll no doubt become a lovely mass of flat colour but for now she is a wonderful mess of watercolour pencil.  

This is her conductor.  

He remains nameless and is no doubt going to be replaced.  Never fear for he is not bothered 

because it is that wonderful time just as lunch approaches and he is thinking mostly about soup.

And these ruffians and are a few of my previous owl orchestra.  Aren't they wonderfully flat?  

They urge to me to ensure you their music is not.