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Here's something Philip Reeve and I came up with while Stuart and I were visiting his family over Christmas. (Philip did the drawing, and most of the writing, too, but I SUPERVISED.) :D You can read Philip's New Year blog) here. (Contains pugs.)

Dartmoor Pegasus started as a little 'artifact' created by Philip Reeve at least a decade ago, before I knew him.



And today it's printed in story form in the Telegraph! (Thanks, illustrator Cathy Brett, for alerting us!)


Photo by Cathy Brett

We originally created the story for my blog, day by day. Philip adapted the story slightly when the newspaper asked us if they could print it, so it would work with less images, and you can read the whole fully illustrated version here on my blog.



I love drawing the Dartmoor Pegasus so much! And he so came to symbolise fun, supportive co-authorship to me that we ended up making him the logo for our #PicturesMeanBusiness campaign to get illustrators credited properly for their work. Making stories with a friend is the best thing EVER.



PicturesMeanBusiness.com

PS Funnily enough, our story's across from an article about Doctor Who, and Philip wrote a Doctor Who story! You can see my fan art for it here.

I haven't been doing enough of my own non-work drawing lately, and when I don't, I find I feel rather low, and my work slows down. So last night I got out my pens and did another Dartmoor Pegasus drawing.



It's part of a story that my Cakes in Space co-author Philip Reeve and I made up as we went along, based on a little painting he once made on a piece of wood. (You can see earlier Dartmoor Pegasus drawings here.



The thing that got me going was when concept artist Ian McQue tweeted a picture with the #maysketchaday hash tag. People are trying to post one sketch every day, but a lot of these people are concept artists and a lot of what they call 'sketches' look like big, epic finished pieces to me. If I ever start thinking I've figured out this illustration thing, I just need to look over at concept artists' work and realise I still have a long way to go in upping my game. I love line, but I'm not so good at lighting effects and more subtle colours, and some of these guys are masters.

Ian McQue consistently posts amazing work; he's one of the best things happening on Twitter. Here's one, created in Photoshop, with a Blade Runner feel to it:




And another based on his 'Mechadoodles', this one titled 'Flea':



My other favourite person experimenting on Twitter is Jonathan Edwards (@jontofski). Here's a watercolour painting of a street corner in Toronto that most people would probably pass without noticing. He's turned it into total magic:



This #maysketchaday meme has instroduced me to some more concept artists. Check out work by Thomas Scholes:







Here's one by Paul Scott Canavan (@abigbat):



And another by Lennart Verhoeff (@Pixeltuner):



I'm going to try to post some more drawings for #maysketchaday. I'm not sure they'll be every day because I have a lot of events, but I'll do my best. Thanks for sharing your work, lovely concept artists. You're very inspiring!

(If you've never read our Dartmoor Pegasus story, you can catch up here.)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

And here are all twelve installments of the Dartmoor Pegasus story, starring Kevin the fat flying pony, by Philip Reeve and me! Well, we've come to the end of the first story; we might come back to it because I had too much fun to stop.



































. . .

In that second-to-last picture, that's Stuart and me in the Pegasus nest with Sam (Philip and Sarah Reeve's son) and Sarah and Philip down below. (Check out Sarah Reeve's great Dartmoor Instagram photos if you want to see more of the landscape.)

Going on hikes with the Reeves, Stuart and I have encountered quite a few of the flightless ponies. Here's one of them:



On one of these walks, I was telling Philip how I'd always wanted to create a horse story because I was one of those horse-obsessed children. My family used to visit a place not far from our house called Kelsey Creek Farm where I took a 'farm experience course'. I remember making such a stink about not wanting to wear this beige farm experience shirt (beige!) but I loved the horse riding. My legs are too short to reach the stirrups in this photo:



I devoured stacks of romantic stories about horses, and here are just a few of them:



And I watched all the films: The Black Stallion, The Black Stallion Returns, Pharlap, The Man from Snowy River... Here's a scene from that last one that I thought was the most amazing thing ever:



For a horse-obsessed kid, I was incredibly lucky. My mother had a friend named Betty who bred show horses, but she always had a pony or two kicking about in the pasture. This one was named Bluebell and I LOVED Bluebell.



In almost all the books I read about horses, they always featured the theme of this SPECIAL BOND between the horse and its rightful owner (the main character). Perhaps no one would be able to ride the horse except this one good-hearted person. The horse would be wild and free, but come as soon as it could sense its beloved master nearby.

I knew that I couldn't possibly love anyone more than Bluebell, and surely she must realise this - I longed to have her love me back - but the problem was that Bluebell HATED me. This was deeply upsetting.



See how tight those reins are? Staying on top of Bluebell was a constant battle. She was the Amazing Inflatable Horse, and would blow up her belly to an obscene size while I was putting on the saddle. Then I'd ride out and she'd blow out all the air and the saddle would flop sideways with me in it. If that didn't work, she's scrape me off along a fence post. Or buck me over her head. Or roll, or throw me into farm equipment.

No one else wanted to ride Bluebell so it became my mission to be the one person who could tame this wild pony and make her love me. We'd go for mad gallops through the pasture and both come back covered in blood and sweat and foam, and Bluebell hated me with renewed vigour.

I never forgot this deep sense of LONGING as a child, and the thrill of riding very fast and not knowing if I'd break my neck and kind of not caring. I thought, I really must write one of those horse books, like the ones I loved as a child.

But... well, take a look at this cover. Here's one of my Black Stallion books:



It's awfully hard to take this stuff seriously when you're a grownup. Them ponies ain't ever gonna love you, little Sarah. I'm not sure I could make one of these stories with a straight face, it might take a better person than me. So when Philip and I started the Dartmoor Pegasus drawings, with their element of fun absurdity, they felt just right.

People have asked if we're doing a book, but I have no idea; I just wanted something fun to draw that doesn't have any expectations or deadline. BUT... hold your horses! There WILL be something for you to read, that is sure to be a great laugh: one of my favourite webcartoonists, Kate Beaton, is bringing out a fat pony book!



The Princess and the Pony launches at the end of June with Arthur A. Levine Books in the USA, and you can read a Wired interview with her about it here. Kate's book started with some fat pony comics on her blog, such as this one:



Also check out horse books for older kids by Lauren St John. But I wish there were more comics about horses and ponies. The only recent one I can think of is My Little Pony comics. Here are two panels by Andy Price (story by Katie Cook) and you can get a preview of some more on Comic Book Resources website.



I wish I'd known when I was a kid that I could have made horse comics, when I had all that time and passion. I totally would have done that. Why did I not figure that out?? If there had been any at the library, I would have sat down and read them ALL, in one sitting.



News flash to all the little Sarahs of the world: WE CAN ALL MAKE PONY COMICS.

And here's the latest installment of the Dartmoor Pegasus, by Philip Reeve and me! (You can read earlier episodes here.)

If you're not from Britain, and don't know what a 'custard cream' is, here's a description. They're not the most luxurious biscuits available, but I like them very much and the packet level goes down very quickly once the tea's made. You can also read a review of the custard cream over at nice cup of tea and a sit down.



And this isn't very much related, but I just thought you might like to see this lovely video, 'Bird on the Wires', by Jarbas Agnelli. He noticed the birds looked like musical notes and decided to see what would happen if he played them.


Direct YouTube link

Here's the latest installment in the Dartmoor Pegasus story by Philip Reeve and me. (Catch up on the rest of the story here.)



I'm not the only one bringing creativity to the Dartmoor Pegasus! Here's a piece of haiku, tweeted by @Canzonett:



And this lovely postcard painting arrived in the post, by @thatpebbles! One could easily imagine the Dartmoor Pegasus carved into the turf of a chalky hillside, like the Uffington or Westbury white horses.

Back to the Dartmoor Pegasus! Here's the latest installation in the story by Philip Reeve and me. (You can read earlier episodes here.)

(See the earlier episodes here.) Sad events yesterday, but we just keep doing what we do. Tell stories, draw pictures, keep flying.

Dartmoor's fat flying ponies find themselves grounded. (Here's the latest installment in the Dartmoor Pegasus series by Philip Reeve & me.)



I love drawing Dartmoor, it's like visiting Middle Earth. It had fun with the detail in this one, trying to capture the twisty trees and stone walls. And a little tor on the horizon.



Speaking of Middle Earth, we have a new troll in our studio. (Elissa Elwick arranged him nicely for the photo.)



And one more thing, this is quite funny. (Thanks for the link, nice_cup_of_tea!)

FLUMP. (By Philip Reeve & me, see earlier entries.)



Philip has blogged about the Dartmoor Pegasus, and you can also read his new review of the film Maleficent, which I also very much enjoyed.

By Philip Reeve & me: it all starts to go horribly wrong for the fat flying ponies.





(You can see previous Dartmoor Pegasus episodes here.)

The fat flying ponies of Dartmoor meet their first resistance.









(Read previous episodes here.)

EXTRA! I just have to include this Dartmoor Pegasus Toaster drawing by Howard Partridge:



(He's hoping for a return to the apocryphal toast appearance.)



In other news: here's an interesting link to '10 comics that shut down terrible internet arguments', worth a browse. The one about the sea lion really made me giggle.

Here's what Part 2 looked like before I coloured it and added lettering:


And after:



(See Part 1 of Dartmoor Pegasus by Philip Reeve & me.)

This year I want to try harder to make a just-for-fun drawing every day. I've been having such a good time drawing the Dartmoor Pegasus - inspired by Philip Reeve's little painting and sculpture (see the earlier blog post) - that he's agreed to do an ongoing story with me, to accompany my drawings.



So here we go, let the story begin! Check back for updates. (And, of course, check out my other stories with Philip - Oliver and the Seawigs, Cakes in Space - he's such a fab writer.)