The first step was to design the characters of the Duke and his men. When I first read the manuscript I felt that the characters should be whimsical little characters that looked like they might take themselves very seriously but were actually a little absurd. I had an idea that they would be short with biggish heads – rather childlike proportions. As there are are ‘ten thousand’ of them, I wanted to come up with characters that looked very similar to each other, increasing the illusion that there are a lot of them. I decided that the Duke would be on horseback and that the horse would be much too big for him. I studied Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magus Balthazar for inspiration as well as Paulo Uccello’s The Rout of San Romano

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In the end, I decided to use playing card inspired faces for my characters. This gave me the opportunity to hide card suits within the illustrations as well as play with the juxtaposition of the flat cardlike characters in a 3 dimensional environment with 3 dimensional objects.

The real ‘Grand Old Duke’ has been attributed to Frederick Augustus who, as the second son of George III, was made duke. He lead the unsuccessful Flanders campaign of 1793-99. With this in mind, I decided to draw upon the military uniforms of this era as inspiration for my character’s costume.

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Once I had established what the characters were going to look like I began to rough out ideas for the illustrations in thumbnail form. At this stage I play around with text placement and balance of the composition. Usually there are very few details. Sometimes thumbnails just look like a bunch of circles and squiggles. If I like the balance of the circles and squiggles I will go over them in pen and add more details.

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After I have come up with a thumbnail idea that I like, I develop the idea further and create a ‘rough’. In this rough I have decided to add the Duke on horseback and an awning that will be white where the text will be.

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Once the rough is at a stage that I am happy with, I create a tighter version which I trace onto watercolour paper for the purpose of creating a sample illustration.

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This is a sample illustration I created for myself to test the colours and technique that I am going to use for the final illustrations. I send a jpeg to my publisher to give them a general idea what the illustrations will look like.

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I make a few modifications to my last version. Once I have completed all the roughs for the book they are submitted to the publisher for approval before I go ahead with the final art. This drawing has been traced onto Arches 300 lb watercolour paper, outlined in ink and the borders have been taped out. It is now ready for the first wash.

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The first wash is a watery red colour. The wash takes the edge off the ink outlines and creates a warm background for the next layers of paint. It has a unifying effect on the painting. The red will also serve as the red jacket colour for the Duke and his ten thousand men.

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I fill in all the white areas. I paint in each colour in all 14 illustrations at the same time. This ensures that the colours will be the same from page to page.

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The paint I am using is a matte acrylic. It is an opaque paint that dries very quickly without the ‘plastic’ shiny quality of other acrylic paints.

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I have now added blue uniform details, the horses colour and the yellow hair.

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The gold detailing on the Duke’s uniform is painted in as well as the horse’s dapples.

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The details in the main illustration have all been completed and I have removed the tape around the edges so that I can paint in the red border. I also draw in the side bar patterns in pencil.

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The side bars are rendered in watercolour in a more realistic style than the little men. The background pattern reflects the card suit that appears in the main illustration. In this case it is clubs. The illustration is now finished and ready to send off to the publisher.

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