How it started

 I had been drawing up book covers for Heide and Iain for a few years. 

Examples can be found here (www.bigbeano.co.uk)

When the COVID lockdown of 2020 started, Iain asked if id ever thought of doing a children's book. I had, working with another writer on a book about a fish that lived in a toilet cistern, which has never been published. I was eager to try another particularly since this promised to be a more collaborative affair. What kind of things did I like drawing? Fantasy stuff, always had been my favourite subject since I was a teen.

Something stylised, humorous and not too realistic.

We brainstormed and came up with the idea of a goblin working as a drudge for a super powerful wizard. His colleagues are gnomes, who are regimented, clanny and unionised. Overseen by literal spooks who act like a secret police force, this could all have gone a bit too dark if we hadn't been careful. 

The Goblin would find a dragon, I drew one up based on a triangular body shape and called it Hypoteneuse..... so it followed that the goblin whose body shape was a polygon became Pollig