Illustrations of the Trains

 Today I thought I'd show a small series of illustrations I've done that are recreations from Thomas and Friends, a franchise that by now you'll know played a huge role in my life. They were all done using Crayola pens and Tombow brush pens marked on toned sketchbook paper. Initially I had done a drawing of the original characters (Thomas, Edward, Gordon and Henry) based on their appearances back in 1984 so the following illustrations are taken from the following seasons up until the end of the 90's.

Daisy

The latter 10 episodes of the second season are my favourites and possibly the first episodes I had ever seen (my first episode was either The Deputation or Thomas and Gordon). Now I could have had a blast with any of those 10 episodes, but I chose Daisy as for two things - it's lack of any main characters I had recently drawn and the presence of Daisy who until recently was a sorely underrated character. This first shot of Daisy, Percy and Toby is beautiful and allowed me to play with perspective a little. While the paper allowed me to capture a very Season 2 tone, the perspective could have been better as Toby is too narrow. But this fault allowed me to make a decision for my next piece.

Time For Trouble

My first exposure to Season 3 was the early narration VHS for Trust Thomas and other stories. I adored these episodes and at the time, I only had my VHS tapes to get any exposure to Thomas so these episodes felt completely alien to anything else I had ever seen from Thomas and Friends, even to other Season 3 episodes I saw which had been released after the redub. I think if I were to try a Season 3 inspired illustration again, it would definitely be one from this nostalgic VHS if I could ever bring myself to chose.

Luckily I didn't have to, as my goal was to improve my take on Toby, so getting the chance to illustrate James as well I chose Time For Trouble; but tweaked things slightly from the filmed shot. Instead of pulling into the big station, they arrive at the works station as stated in the narration and the books. This means the inclusion of a Skarloey railway engine was necessary and I chose Sir Handel who sadly didn't get as much screen-time as his colleagues after his debut season.

You Can't Win

Of course this one was going to feature the small engines! The fourth season is well known for spending over half a season focused on it's narrow gauge railways while Thomas and his friends took the backseat. Because he only ever appears in the fourth season, I chose to focus on Duke and took this screenshot from You Can't Win; also his final moments with anything above a cameo role. I got to draw some people and modified Duke's coupling to suit his real life prototype which did not have just a coupling hook.

Cranky Bugs

"We're sure to be safe in this shed!" This episode is the start of a bold new direction in Thomas' new history, where the show would become exclusive to original content and no longer be dependent on written material. Even though Duck is the only engine I'd be introducing to this collection, I felt I was ready to draw a line of engines together and it didn't turn out too bad. 

As Droey Drawson my focus has to be on my characters the word built around them, so it's unlikely that I'll be making a big collection out of these. If anything I might do more for myself sparingly but it is nice to be able to share these with an audience.