Meet the bunnies

Life Is Magic is finally out, yay!  If you haven't seen it yet then allow me to introduce you to a few of the characters...

Book trailer magic

Here is the book trailer for Life Is Magic made by people far smarter than me.  Thanks to Jonathon Moore and any magical assistants he may have had.

Tadaaaaaa!

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.

Not long now...

December 1

So it turns out it's December already (no-one panic.)  That means that the lovely folks on twitter have started to #illo_advent again.  I won't have time for many but here's one for day one...

You may now panic.

Christmas cards are available here for those of you feeling festive and in need of cards.  

It's too soon I know, but Christmas cards!

This year's Christmas cards are ready and available to buy here  

All are printed in recycled card on the UK and are looking for good homes.

You could get your seasonal mitts on all of these:

Stocking Fillers

Meet Snug, Smirk, Slurp and Scrump, Santa's lesser known helpers. They may look like they're relaxing but due to an unforeseen stocking-filling shortage (someone forgot to order the tangerines...it was Gary) these four furry heroes have taken it upon themselves to fill the stockings themselves.

Lovebirds

Spread the love this Christmas with this lovebird wreath. These birds whistle Christmas carols all year round, come with their own stripy hats and are all house trained...except Mo, but he's pretty so we let it go.

Mouseltoe

These two lovebirds have been the talk of Santa's workshop, the will-they-won't-they couple of the season. All bets are off but no-one is safe with kissletoe about!

Mouse wreath

A mouse-infested wreath may not sound like an ideal gift but I guarantee these furry friends are the height of Christmas spirit. They knit their own hats, jingle their own bells and will only eat your cut price cheese, not the fancy stuff you reserved for guests.

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.