Here’s a couple of images from the Grimm story The Elves and the Cobbler, which recently appeared in the Japanese children’s magazine Ooki-na Pocket. The magazine is produced by one of the biggest children’s presses in Japan, Fukuinkan Shoten, with which I released two picture books in the 1990’s. The editor is a lovely guy, but seems to have pigeonholed me as solely a “traditional” illustrator of fairy tales. This is despite all my work in advertising (in a very different style) and much more contemporary children’s books released in the West.
I love working in a tradition style on fairy tales, but it is only one side of what I do. When I showed the editor my other, perhaps more well known work, it was somewhat frustrating to hear him say “oh, so you don’t just do fairy tales then”.
Doh!
Anyway, this was a lovely story to work on.