Toffle Towers: designing a hotel exterior

Many scenes in the Toffle Towers series happen in and around the eponymous hotel. So it was down to me – an illustrator with absolutely no architecture experience (!) – to design the exterior of the building. It needed to look historic, a little shabby but also exciting and quirky. Here’s how I designed it.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Toffle Towers book 3, I’ve prepped a bunch of behind-the-scenes blog posts. I’ll show you how I designed the characters; how I designed the cover for book 1; how I designed the hotel’s lobby; and how I designed other elements like the shuttle bus and the title typography. But today, I’m showing you how I designed the exterior of the hotel.

Tim described the hotel pretty clearly; it had three floors and a symmetrical design. It had ivy growing up the walls, and it also sounded a bit old-fashioned and quirky. This is the very first tiny scrappy sketch I made while reading the book.

Through some google image searching, I found a real location that felt like what I had in mind: Belton House in the UK. The problem was, it only had two floors. So I photoshopped another one on (and added in some extra turrets).

From there I could have a go at drawing it and simplifying it. I tried one version that was pretty much the same dimensions … … but it wasn’t quite quirky enough, so I smooshed it – I made it narrower and taller. It still wasn’t quite quirky enough, so I mucked around some more, and started adding some colour – I made three more versions.

Here’s a timelapse of me sketching those three versions.

Version B was the winner! Here’s the final version (before Barry started renovating it).

You can check out more behind-the-scenes blog posts for Toffle Towers here.

Toffle Towers 3: Order in the Court

Pre-order now:
– Booktopia (Australia/NZ only)
– Dymocks
– QBD (Australia only)
– Readings
– Angus & Robertson (Australia only)
– Book Depository

Toffle Towers 2: The Great River Race

Buy online
– Booktopia (Australia/NZ only)
– Dymocks
– QBD (Australia only)
– Readings
– Angus & Robertson (Australia only)

Toffle Towers 1: Fully Booked

Buy online
– Booktopia (Australia/NZ only)
– Kinokuniya (Australia only)
– Dymocks
– QBD (Australia only)
– Readings
– Angus & Robertson (Australia only)

Author: James Foley

James Foley makes children’s books for children who read books. If you’re a child and you’re eating his books, you’re doing it wrong. His books include Brobot, Dungzilla, Gastronauts, Chickensaurus, Toffle Towers, My Dead Bunny and There's Something Weird About Lena. James lives in Perth with his wife, 2 kids, and a labrador. He is a massive Marvel movie nerd and comes from a long line of queuing enthusiasts. Follow him on FB/twitter/insta/youtube @jamesfoleybooks, or at www.jamesfoley.com.au . View all posts by James Foley