Important Stories

Want to tell a story that truly matters? Harness the power of visual storytelling—where words and imagery combine to leave a lasting impact.

This is the story of Isi Metzstein, a young boy who escaped pre-war Berlin on the Kindertransport and found refuge in Glasgow. Told through Isi’s own voice, drawn from an intimate audio interview, the narrative reveals the danger he faced, the heartbreaking separation from his family, and their miraculous reunion as they built a new life in Scotland.

The story was brought to life through a powerful collaboration between writer Paul Bristow, myself, and the young people of St Bride’s School. The resulting comic is a moving testament to how learners and creators can work together to illuminate history—preserving voices that must never be forgotten.

All the illustrations were created in pen and ink, hand drawn and the artwork scanned and coloured on Photoshop. Have a look at the short video to see all the pages in Isi’s story. The idea from the leaners was to have the fire punctuate the black and white to show the violence of the fire that destroys his Synagogue,

Cover art

Ever wondered how a book cover got made and why it looks the way it does? All go through a process, a brief, different drafts and then the final art you see. The first sketch nailed down the foreground composition, what followed was a game of place the shark.

About my process, creating drafts and going through ideas is one of the enjoyable aspects on creating art. Illustrating a cover artwork and going through this process will always strengthen the look of the finished artwork. Ideas can be tried out with a few well placed marks from a pencil and discarded or developed accordingly. Having creating hundreds of cover artworks over my professional career I have a good instinct for what works and my first sketch will often be close to what is needed. What follows is a refinement of that with the clients input.

Upstairs Downstairs

A double page spread from my James Croll book, that tells the tales of a Perthshire scientist and his life and discoveries. This artwork details his time managing a hotel and each room represents different jobs needed to be done from day to day. A little ode to Wes Anderson films as I did a slice through the hotel to Show Croll and his wife doing chores and tending to guests. Artwork created totally by hand using colouring pencils.

My little Ode to Wes Anderson films in my treatment of this double page for James Croll Adventures in Time and Space storybook.

Plasto A New Character Design for The Sustainables Academy

This fellow is a happy chap and he’s also one of the Sustainables. This character forms part of a range of illustrated characters created for a exciting range school resources to educate on environmental issues and matters of responsible consuming. Plasto represents plastic use and recycling and as you can see has a bendable and stretchable physicality to him.

Clients wanting to commission usually present an idea and from that a conversation and then rough drafts follow to develop the idea further. I’ve attached a later pencil draft to show what a final concept looks like and how closely it looks to the final presented to the client.

KA-BOOM! Superhero Team Character Design!

Another of my character designs for Sustainables Academy, this character named Shatter is made from glass and she informs learners about glass, how its made our use of it and the importance of recycling and cutting down its use.

I wanted to avoid cracks or sharp or broken glass elements to her look, as you can imagine a broken glass look would not go down well in a classroom! When coming up with her I though more about glass and the shiny polished look of glass bottles. As with all the Sustainable characters they are guided by a nineties cartoon series look and hopefully that comes across in the style of Shatter.

Shatter in all her Nineties style glory! Original character created in pen in ink.

Shatter with The Sustainables Team.