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.

 

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?

nett & gross

How I remember the difference:

If you have a can of, say, pears, the gross weight is the pears, plus can. But if you were to take them out of the can, and place them in a net, which is virtually weightless, that's the nett weight. 

When it comes to money, just as the pears in the tin are heavier than the pears in the net, so your gross income is bigger than your nett income.

Yet another useful calculator

This one changes hours & minutes to decimal time, or vice versa. Very useful, if you are working out how much something should cost based on an hourly rate. You just turn the hours & minutes into decimals, then multiply by £s. Simple!

Admin

I hate it
>:-(

Another useful calculator

Did you know there is such a thing as a Time calculator?

Very useful if you want to do sums that have hours and minutes, and really can't be bothered remembering how to do that.

A+

The people who invented the A series of paper (A4, A3 etc) deserve a medal. Best thing since sliced bread.* I'm working on some illustrations at the minute, and we're not quite sure how big they'll be printed. But it doesn't matter. Because all the paper is the same proportion, we can do them 71% smaller and they'll still fit exactly. 

*Why is every good invention always compared to sliced bread? Yes, it's useful, but personally I think disposable toilet paper wins hands down.

A useful tool for the mathematically challenged

I can never get my head round percentages, but I've just come across this site. 

It gives it in words:

What is % of ?

is what percent of ?

What is the percentage increase/decrease from to ?

Very useful - now I don't need to try and remember if I'm supposed to be multiplying or dividing (and which number I'm to divide by what...)

Ah well, back to the admin...

Pythagoras' Theorem is useful

I used it today! For buying material for a Christmas play costume in a triangular poncho style (It will be a tropical bird, and if you're wondering what that has to do with Christmas you'll just have to wait and see). I also needed algebra, and binary chop because I didn't have a calculator on me to work out the square root. Those maths lessons are still useful 15-20 years later! It would have been easier, however, if I was rather better at my times tables...

Btw, did you know that, not only is the square on the hypoteneuse the sum of the squares on the other two sides, but also the pentagon on the hypoteneuse is the sum of the pentagons on the other two sides, and the Mona Lisa on the hypoteneuse is the sum of the Mona Lisas on the other two sides? I found this truly useful info in a book I gave my dad for his birthday.