Numberblocks woz 'ere

I once read this quote by an author:

when you write your fantasy epic, stumble upon some attractive plotline and pursue it you almost inevitably find a little engraved stone. ‘J. R. R. Tolkien was here first’

~Chris Walley

As an illustrator of children's maths books, I can sympathize with this sentiment, though my plaque would read 'Numberblocks was here first'. 

We could give 1 a single eye? Numberblocks did that first.

We could give 2 glasses? Numberblocks did that first.

4 could involve square shapes? They did that first. 5's motif could be a star? They did that. 7 could reflect a rainbow in some way? They did that too. 8 could be based on either an octopus or a spider? They did BOTH (that's just greedy!) 

I can't possibly avoid everything they've done!

Maths Monsters

 Here's one of the promotional videos for the Maths Monsters books.

 

Inking & colouring Maths Monsters

Here's a wee video I made, showing how I inked and coloured one of my latest illustrations.

 

I chose a simple illustration and speeded it up, so it's just 12 minutes.

 

Sketches

When your train is cancelled, it's amazing how much work you can fit on the back of two receipts 😄

 

New project coming soon...

Mrs Sigma & Mr Omega

The final two of my Greek maths characters redrawn. These ones were adults, because they're capital letters.

This has been a very fun thing to do. It also has enabled me to create much more interesting characters than I would if you just gave me a sheet of paper and said, "Draw 9 children and two teachers."

As Jake Parker said, "Creativity thrives on constraint" - in this instance having to echo the shape of a character designed from a Greek letter, representing particular maths/science functions (pretty tenuously, I admit)

And here are all they all are. Please ignore the fact that they were drawn separately and the proportions and style don't always match!

Zeta

The last of the kids (just the adults to do now).

I never felt Zeta was that interesting a character, despite being the mascot. Or perhaps because of that -  he didn't really have any other meaning.

But I'm quite pleased with the real boy.

Click to see bigger.

I've never tried to draw skinny jeans before. Worked out OK.

Previous characters:
Gamma
Pi
Phi 
Lambda 
Theta
Alpha & Beta (half way down)
Delta

Delta

This one was quite tricky - to at least in some way echo his body shape and pose.

Click to see bigger

Previous characters:
Gamma
Pi
Phi 
Lambda 
Theta
Alpha & Beta (half way down)

Theta, Alpha & Beta

Theta:

Click to see bigger

Alpha & Beta:

Click to see bigger

Beta's hair was tricky to make look like a plausible style and still be related to the letter.

As Alpha and Beta are twins I let myself cheat a little :-)

Previous characters:
Gamma
Pi
Phi 
Lambda

Lambda

Here's Lambda!

Click to see bigger

Previous characters:
Gamma
Pi
Phi

Phi

Next in the series drawing my greek maths characters as real children.
Here's Phi.

Click to see larger

That hand with the paintbrush was tricky - I had to copy my own hand.
I like how I did more realistic eyes on this one.
And I was very happy with the hair!

I'm finding it strange without my usual colour palettes. But probably strange in a good way - I have to think more about the colours, instead of just going to my default skin colours, for example.

Previous characters:
Gamma
Pi

Pi

And here's Pi. That was a trickier pose! I think he's maybe a bit young looking compared to Gamma.

Click to see larger.

Gamma

I just got a new program - Clip Studio Paint (formerly Manga Studio).

Thought I'd try it out by redrawing my wee greek letters as real kids.

Here's Gamma. Took about 50 minutes.

Click to see bigger

Maybe I should have done her with scientist's goggles instead?

Zeta Maths

I've been having fun :-)

They are little characters for a kids' maths book.

"The characters have two main purposes, firstly to bring a bit of interest to some otherwise pretty boring books and secondly [...] a good educational opportunity to teach at least some of the Greek alphabet, which they will use later, at an early age."

All the personalities are based on some of the maths or science uses of the letters.

Alpha and Beta are twins. They like reading mystery stories, and writing secret codes to each other.

Gamma loves comics and old sci-fi movies. She got a science set for her birthday, and wants to invent a real ray gun.

Delta likes practicing conjuring tricks.  His favourite films are Shrek and Harry Potter.

Zeta’s favourite subject is maths. He likes watching videos about strange weather, especially tornadoes. And he loves sleeping. Zzzzzzz

Theta likes watching snooker with his grandad. His favourite foods are Doritos and cheese triangles.

Lambda loves swimming and surfing. Summer is her favourite time of year. Wherever she goes, she’s always listening to music.

Pi likes pies. And pizza. And cakes... When he’s not eating, he’ll usually be playing football.

Mrs Sigma is the school secretary. She adds up the number of children at school every day, and checks that the right amount of dinner money has been collected. She likes doing Sodoku.

Phi is always very elegant. She likes flowers and shells. She wants to be an artist when she grows up.

Mr Omega is the children’s teacher. He seems strict, but is nice when you get to know him. In his spare time, he likes making electronic gadgets.

Before Google

Before Google, if you wanted to draw a snooker cue you would either have to:

• Draw it from memory and get it wrong.
• Find a real snooker cue (where?).
• Go to the library and hope they had a book about snooker (kids' sections were often the best - lots of pictures).

Which is all very well, but for a minor part of an illustration, would the second two really have been worth it?

The good thing about having another job

I wouldn't like to do the kind of illustration where they say, 'We need it for this afternoon." Sure, I could do something.

But it's much better to work on something off and on. Your brain can be thinking even when you're doing other things. Like walking along the road (hope I didn't startle the girl behind me too much when I suddenly waved my bag in the air and exclaimed, "Ray guns!") Or dusting, or mopping a floor. These things don't take up all your brain, and you can get a lot of useful work done then, instead of staring blankly at a computer screen.

Mid-mopping break to get my thoughts on paper.
Really like the sketch, unfortunately doesn't work so well when I do the actual illustration :-(