A Remarque Edition is when an original pencil drawing or drawings are added to a limited edition print. At the beginning of January, Iain Green contacted me  to discuss two remarque print editions from the Chronicles of Narnia print range. He put forward his initial suggestions and we arrived at a central grouping for one and two relating characters facing each other left and right. I think they turned out pretty well and Iain agrees.

So I’ve decided to offer a drawing or drawing for any of the Prints on offer in the Shop. For the ultimate collector’s item you can have a well-finished original pencil drawing of your choice added in the lower left,  right hand or centre (or all three) of white border of the print, beneath the image. As the drawing will be relatively small, your best choice might be a head and shoulders if a character or creature, or a clearly defined object or detail. You can have one, two or more remarques per print. Each original drawing will be £25.00 extra to the cost of the Print. If you’d like a grouping, a more complex drawing or you’d just like to discuss your ideas, please contact me for a quote or advice. Please visit the Shop for further information.

February 7, 2012   No Comments

With the Doctor Who Experience moving from London to Cardiff, I’m pleased to welcome a special guest ‘blogger’, Craig Sanwell, with a Personal Review follow his visit to the exhibition last year. Craig is a good friend of the site and a great guy for whom I’m done many commissions. Here is just one of the drawings I did for him last year : A Draconian. Thank you Craig!

The Doctor Who Experience – Olympia : A review by Craig Sanwell

The following day myself and my good friend Jase visited the ‘Doctor Who Exhibition at Olympia 2’ (plus one or two pubs here and there, taking in Kensington and the sights along the Southbank). I must say I’ve been to a few ‘Who’ exhibitions over the years, but this is by far the best I’ve been to.

We spent a good two hours there and got some cracking photos. It seems to me to be assembled with real love for the programme as a whole, continuous entity, encompassing the nostalgic ‘classic’ years of the ‘old’ series while at the same time embracing the ‘popularity’ of the ‘new’. There truly is something to please fans of all ages and it is arranged with due consideration for and to accommodate a young family on a fun day out.

We began the first part of the ‘experience’ by joining a small ‘tour’ (which is a brief part of the experience, after which you are free to follow your own way around the exhibits). Each tour commences at half hour intervals that correspond to the time on your ticket. Three exhibits greet your arrival as you wait for your tour group to assemble and three great photo opportunities before you begin your ‘experience’. They are arranged in such a way as to whet the appetite for the splendid journey ahead and comprise whole scenes /dioramas that incorporate props and costumes from the ‘Mat Smith’ era of ‘new’ Who, notably a dalek ‘ironside’ and a new look Silurian.

Signs warn you of no further photos beyond this point, worryingly, but as it transpired this is confined strictly to the interactive section of the event, understandably, so no spoilers can affect other’s day out. For that reason I won’t elaborate on this section but I will say that the kids will ‘love’ this part of the our with so much to involve, entertain and excite them! Reassuringly, as you exit this section and enter the ‘museum’ part of the exhibition the 40 somethings, mums and dads finally come into their own, with so much to see and enjoy you don’t know where to look first.

It truly is a nostalgia fest and the ten year old kid who followed Doctor Who passionately on Saturday tea times from Pertwee’s final season through Tom Baker’s tenure in the ‘70s and beyond was very happy indeed! I counted 11 Doctors’ costumes, 4 consoles, 2 tardis and 12 daleks in various shapes, sizes and hybrid forms.

The first thing to catch your eye on entering is a whole wall in homage to the Doctor Who Radio Times covers featuring an enlarged certain ‘20th Anniversary’ cover. Impressively, all Doctor Who front covers from the first to the latest are represented.

Then the fun begins as you turn a corner and enter an Aladdin’s Cave of costumes, props, monsters and special effects featured from the show’s long and rich and almost 50 years history. Of particular interest to me ere the Doctors’ costumes, just getting close to an seeing them all together was extremely fulfilling, especially the earlier ones and in particular Tom Baker’s as they are so iconic and represent a lifetime of love for the quirky, eccentric and heroic character.

Also of particular interest are all the ‘sonic screwdrivers’ on display from the very earliest to the most recent and it really was a treasure trove of artefacts to meet and greet every hard-core fans’ tastes and a myriad of monsters to please all generations of ‘Whoies’ alike, plus I don’t think there’ll be another opportunity to have a photo taken with David Tennant’s and Peter Davison’s consoles or Mat Smith’s and Tom Baker’s tardis in the not too distant future!

All in all, it’s an utterly and enjoyable fun day out and a wonderful trip down memory lane full of many surprises, some sentimental “Aahhh!” Moments and thrilling “Wow!” Moments to please and delight fans of all ages for many years to come.

Enjoy and book your tickets now! You won’t be disappointed.

Photos © Craig Sanwell

February 5, 2012   4 Comments

Latest Radio Times illustration is in the current issue. It’s for Pilgrim, an intriguing dark fantasy Radio4 drama set in today’s world. Pilgrim is written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz, featuring the immortal William Palmer who is 900 years old. He was cursed by a fellow pilgrim on the road to Canterbury in 1185 for claiming that Christianity would wipe out the old beliefs. That pilgrim was the Lord of Faerie and William must forever walk between the worlds of the Greyfolk (them) and the Hotbloods (us). Afternoon Play, R4, 26th Jan, 2.15pm. I’ve heard three or so of the Pilgrim plays so far and they are excellent. The original art is available- anyone interested can contact me via the my website.

January 23, 2012   No Comments

You can see my latest illustration for the Radio Times magazine in the current bumper Christmas issue. It’s for the final part of The Chronicles of Narnia ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ and features on the radio page for Friday 23rd December. This special double issue will have around 2.5 million readers!  The original is painted on smooth rigid illustration board in acrylics at three times the size of the reproduction. Image size : 112W x 215H mm approx with white surround. The original is sold.

December 19, 2011   No Comments

Back in July I was approached by Stephen Henning about a possible commission relating to a young adult novel he had written and intended to self publish. Stephen is a publisher and now writer. He knew my work from my Doctor Who book covers in the 1980s and he had most of the the books when he was growing up and really liked the work on my website.
We exchanged emails and he decided to commission an image that best reflected the book and featured the main characters, teenagers Sam and James who discover they have gained superpowers following a traumatic event. The image would initially be used for the website. I decided to draw the figures and then render the art digitally using all number of ‘tricks’ I hadn’t tried before. Stephen was delighted with the final images.
The Class Heroes book and the website has just gone live and the first title, A Class Apart, is now available from Amazon. For more info, character profiles, preview chapters and much more, visit www.classheroes.com AND www.247interactivenews.com for the Class Heroes ‘live’ television reports.

Teenage twins James and Samantha Blake are caught up in a seemingly random terrorist bombing while on a school trip. Many of their friends are killed. When the twins wake up in hospital, their lives have changed forever.
The doctors are amazed at the speed with which James and Sam recover from their injuries and, when the twins begin to exhibit extraordinary powers, it is obvious that something incredible has happened.
As James and Sam attempt to overcome their fears and embrace their new abilities, a series of murders and disappearances start plaguing the hospital. The twins aren’t the only ones with special abilities and it becomes apparent that someone is coming for them.
Will James and Sam be able to survive the nightmare into which they have been plunged? Who, or what, is behind the murders at the hospital? And was that terrorist incident quite so random after all?

October 18, 2011   No Comments

The passing of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, has focused me on my relationship with the Apple Mac computer. It must be, I don’t know – ten years ago? – when my friend David Banks, best known to most of you as the 80s Cyberleader, generously donated to us his Apple Cube computer as he was upgrading. I still use it today. It sits in my studio and I use it primarily for my writing. Then came the iMac some years ago, again from David,  followed by it’s purchased updated successor under a year ago. It sits oozing style in the power room of the house, the large glass covered blue screen a blank canvas for creativity, communication and organisation, a Microsoft free zone. A single unit, the wireless silver and white keyboard and white mouse it’s willing companions. It handles gigabytes as if they were dandelion seeds. It is on this machine that I create the compositions for my artwork and digital images. The iPhone and iPad are a mystery to me and the iMac may only be in a minority of homes but it is the chosen tool of creatives and professionals all over the world.  Thank you, Steve Jobs, for bringing me my iMac. It’s the Apple of my eye.

I reproduce with respect these quotes from the man himself. No infringement of copyright is intended :

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]Steve Jobs

October 7, 2011   2 Comments

For those who haven’t been yet, (that includes me, folks – couldn’t make the private view) or don’t know about it, there is a splendid exhibition, Doctor Who In Comics at the Cartoon Museum, London, ending October 30th.
I was asked by it’s Curator, Anita O’Brien, to loan my Doctor Who calendar painting from 1988, Time Off, featuring the Sixth Doctor, numerous aliens, futuristic bits and bobs, me and my wife and JNT. How’s that for value per square inch? It’s a large piece and I hope it looks good there. No reports of it being slashed yet. Don’t even think about it …

I’m really pleased to be part of the exhibition especially as it’s a bit of an exception to the comic strip rule. Despite the hundreds of Doctor Who pieces of art I’ve done, few have ever been exhibited. So this is a very rare opportunity to see a large piece. And for the half a dozen or so people who’ve still got jobs and money, it is for sale. The details are on the website if you can get the pix to load but I’m repeating them here : ’Time Off’ : Who Dares Calendar 1989 20  x 18.25 inches (approx) Acrylics on rigid CS10 board, Price Guide £2000. Open to Offers and most of my originals can be purchased in instalments.

September 18, 2011   2 Comments

Arrgh! He’s Back! What can I say? I’ve finally been let out? Or been finally let in after being locked out? None of these things – I was in fact abducted from the Dorset countryside by olive green Daleks sprouting greenery of a various kinds (a cunning disguise). After being taken to their spacecraft and following unspeakable threats, I was forced to teach them to paint. Why me, I pleaded? I start with a bowl of fruit – they took one look and zapped it. So I tried to explain to them the concept of a life class. So what happens? There are these Daleks, six of them, at easels and with paint brushes stuck in their guns. And who is the model? An exposed Dalek, all green and ‘orrible, waving his disgusting tentacles about. Models are supposed to sit still, I said. Of course it was predictable what happened. They started criticising each other’s efforts and a full scale extermination developed. What emerged was a rather fine and eccentric metallic ‘installation’ or sculpture made up of the remains of five Daleks. The surviving Dalek demanded to know if it could win the Turner prize on Earth. Given that most Tate prize winning art is junk, I said I thought it had a very good chance. So it said we should immediately travel there. Once back on Earth I managed to give the Dalek the slip and I was out of there. Now where’s that Dalek plunger – the drain’s blocked…

September 17, 2011   No Comments

April 21, 2011   2 Comments

I’ve decided to come out –  I am a Biggler – I Biggle. There, I’ve said it. It come into my life in 1997 when Norman Wright,  a bookseller, prolific writer and now old friend and publisher,  approached me. ‘Pssst –’  he said. ‘Fancy doing a Biggles cover? Know what I mean? ..nudge, nudge..’  And that was it.  I agreed and there was no looking back. It wasn’t as if I’d never heard of Biggling – I vaguely knew it went on you understand but it had never occurred to me that I might Biggle myself – not only that but I would become a serial Biggler, to boot. This January I completed my twelfth – is it? – Biggles cover, Biggles and the Gun Runners, together with a full page line frontispiece and more recently  an intense Biggling session, completing some forty nine pencil drawings of a Courier aircraft directly into the books themselves. I can see many confused faces. Am I mad, in a dream, or has thirty one years of time travel finally conbobulated the diatribal lobes of my cortextian input? Time to explain, my fiends.
Biggles, the flying ace, is the famous creation of the prolific author, W E Johns.  In 1998 Norman Wright  published Biggles Does Some Homework, the first of what became an ongoing series of licensed sell-out Limited Edition W E Johns reprints which are now sort after collector’s editions in their own right. Nowadays this paperback edition which retailed at £18.50 in an edition of 300, may cost you up to £750 plus to buy.

Over the years, I’ve completed covers, frontispieces and internal illustrations for the limited edition series, not only for the Biggles series, but for many other WE Johns titles under the Norman Wright imprint. All have sold out, virtually all increased in value. The next big development was to offer a number of the copies with personalised drawings. This started with a single head and shoulders in pencil of Biggles and developed into offering on one particular title, a trio of colour portraits of the main characters, all drawn into each individual book. The logistics of this is possible as we both, coincidentally,  moved to the same area of Dorset in the same year and live quite close to each other.

Norman now usually publishes two titles a year, each with a drawing option, the ambition of which depends on the title and what has been offered in the previous book. When the lead hits the propeller, it’s a case of strapping myself in at the drawing board, and flying by the seat of my pants until all, fifty, sixty or seventy drawings are completed. My Biggling sortie completed, it’s feet up in the officers mess and a big mug of tea with the chaps (and chappesses if I’m lucky). Here’s to the next mission whenever the balloon goes up – I’ll take the old crate skywards again and notch up another fifty or so perhaps. Just part of the job. Chocks Away!

A Hurricane over Old Harry Rocks, The Isle of Purbeck, Dorset where I live

You can contact Norman Wright at  mossyface@hotmail.com

April 9, 2011   1 Comment