When Sarah Webb asked Michael and myself to contribute illustrations to Beyond the Stars we were both very pleased to be included and very happy to work on something connected to such a good cause.

I was very flattered and a bit intimidated to be paired with Eoin Colfer on his atmospheric 1950’s set short story The Lookout. I even had a bit of a freak out before I established I could still do the type of realistic style drawings the story seemed to demand – it’s been a long time since I’ve worked in this way and I panicked! In the end I did enjoy doing this drawing of the vintage Morris Minor which features in the story, and I was eyeballing a school yearbook photo of Johnny Cash I pulled from the Internet when I drew the picture of Charley, the young protagonist.

Michael was paired with Gordon Snell on his story, The Battle of the Ice Queen and he had some fun reimagining the Snow Queen. As you can see here, he avoided the usual blonde, white and skinny vision which is so much part of our European-centric culture.

Gordon was rather pleased with it!