Ever wondered how the title type for a series gets designed? I’ll show you my inspirations for the title type of the Toffle Towers series. I’ll also show you how I designed the series’ quirky shuttle bus vehicle.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: old-school hand-lettering & a rocket-powered bus”
The Toffle Towers series takes place in and around the eponymous hotel – it’s historic, a bit shabby and definitely quirky. In this post I’ll show you how I designed the hotel’s lobby.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: designing a hotel interior”
Here’s a free step-by-step video tutorial, showing you how to draw the main character from Toffle Towers.
It’s a bumper year for new books. As well as Toffle Towers book 3 out on Aug 4th, I’ve got another two books coming out later this year. One is a graphic novel about Jurassic Park with chickens, and the other the sequel to the cult-favourite My Dead Bunny!
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.
Continue reading “Toffle Towers: designing a hotel exterior”
Ever wanted to know how a children’s book illustrator designs a book cover?
Designing characters is one of my favourite parts of the job. There are lots of little tricks and techniques you can use to design great characters – here’s how I do it.
*** COMING SOON: 4th AUG 2020 ***
The adventures at Toffle Towers hotel continue as the manager – 10-year-old Chegwin Toffle – battles with blizzards, rioting guests and hostile takeover attempts!
Join Chegwin Toffle for more fun and frolics as Toffle Towers gets snowed in. Amid the snowball fights, things start to go wrong when guests’ precious belongings go missing and Brontessa Braxton launches yet another assault to take over the hotel.
Will Chegwin catch the culprit? Will he be able to beat Brontessa in court to save his beloved hotel and staff? And will he ever find the missing room 50 and the hotel’s mystery guest?
Another stellar story written by Tim Harris, and illustrated by James.
PRE-ORDER YOUR SIGNED COPY
– Paper Bird Children’s Books
Pre-Order Local
Find your local bookshop
Pre-order online:
– Booktopia (Australia/NZ only)
– Dymocks
– QBD (Australia only)
– Readings
– Angus & Robertson (Australia only)
– Book Depository
More books in the series:
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AVAILABLE: the month of June ***PLEASE NOTE – THIS WORKSHOP IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE***
COST: free!
Thanks to the City of Gosnells libraries for commissioning this session.
In this workshop participants learn how colour, shape, costume and body language all make great unique characters, and learn to design their own characters for their own stories. Thanks to Victoria Park library for organising this session.
A link will be sent to registered participants prior to the workshop for access.
WHEN: Saturday June 20th
TIMES: 1-2pm
WHERE: online
AGES: 10-17 yo
COST: free
BOOKINGS: essential, via the Victoria Park website.
Calling all young creatives in Western Australia – it’s your time to shine and WIN up to $500 in prizes!
To explore how creativity can play a part in staying connected, Scribblers Festival and CBH Group have joined forces to launch a new visual storytelling competition: Connecting Through Creativity.
Create your artistic response, to the theme Connectivity, in any visual method that inspires you! Some examples include 2D Arts (drawing, illustration, painting, collage, photography, comics, etc.); Video (video diary, performance, stop motion, interview, short film, etc.); and 3D Arts (ephemeral art, land art, sculpture, pop up books, etc.).
The competition is open to Primary and Secondary aged kids from ALL OVER Western Australia, with $500 in prizes up for grabs!
I’m one of four ‘creative mentors’ helping the project (along with Cristy Burne, Beci Orpin and Remy Lai ) – we’re sharing tricks of the trade through a series of video and blog posts over the coming weeks. We’ll help guide you on your artistic journey with inside peeks to our own creative processes, how-tos, and answers to your burning questions.
I made a video for the competition about how being curious helps your creativity.
I also wrote a blog post about curiosity and creativity which you can find here.
Check out the official competition page on the Scribblers website for more info. Entries close June 26.
Good luck!
James Foley 