This is one of the longest stories I have ever been asked to illustrate. When I was reading the story that Kingfisher publications had sent me, I thought "what a nice story"...until I reached the end! I had to create a really difficult illustration of a big theme park...all from imagination! The book was really challenging but very rewarding. I had to draw Harriet the Kangaroo riding a motorbike and accompanying her in a sidecar was George the Panda and Louis the Rhino! When you are an illustrator you need to be prepared to draw all kinds of weird and wonderful things which is where a good imagination and patience comes in! I often get lots of photos of motorbikes, etc to use as reference which helps me to get my pictures right and makes my job a lot easier.
The story took me around 7 weeks in total from start to finish. It normally takes three to four weeks to create the characters and produce black and white roughs and then a few weeks to draw it all out onto good paper and paint. I improve every time I illustrate a book. This book took me a while to do as it has up to 40 pictures in it!
