#Sodor island 3d 2011 license
#Sodor island 3d 2011 series

All the artwork was painted in gouache, colored pencil and ink. Did the illustrating and submission of your work to the Publisher for these interactive books require different art medium or techniques?

Thomas the Tank Engine's Big Lift and Look Book (1996). Many of your illustrated Thomas-themed books are interactive for the very young e.g. When I came back to Australia in '94 and stopped working on TTTE, I stopped using it. Many years ago I saw a children's storybook with a character called 'Owain', which is the Welsh spelling of 'Owen'.I just thought it looked a bit unusual, and so I used it on the TTTE work. Can you shed some light on this little mystery? Most if not all of the Thomas story books you've illustrated credit your first name as 'Owain', not 'Owen'.

#Sodor island 3d 2011 series

They also provided screen shots from the series and videos (remember them?). In later series, they introduced a lot more but that was after I stopped illustrating them. Given the varied railway characters on Sodor, what reference material did you use or were provided with to illustrate them?Д«ritt Allcroft provided me with a Style Bible which had line illustrations (side, front and back elevations) of all the trains, at the time, around 12. So that's how my involvement with TTTE began.

#Sodor island 3d 2011 license

That license was held by Kaye & Ward (later Heinemann UK) at the time. It's important to point out that at this time, Britt Allcroft only had the license to produce the tv series and accompanying merchandise, NOT books.

So Manuscript asked me if I could come up with something based on that brief, which I did, and Britt was very pleased with it, so much so that she asked if I would create ALL the artwork for the worldwide merchandise. Britt Allcroft stipulated that the artwork should bear some resemblance to the original artwork in the 'Railway Series' published in the 50's but 'updated' slightly to look more like the TV series. Manuscript produced fine art prints and were approached by Britt Allcroft to produce a Thomas print, but there was no available artwork which was suitable and so some needed to be created. In the late 80's I was working as a freelancer in the UK for a company called Manuscript in Cornwall where I lived at the time. Owen, how did you first become involved with and interested in illustrating Thomas storybooks?