The Bird King (2010, expanded edition 2019) is a collection of various sketches: random jottings, preliminary designs for book, film and theatre projects, sketchbook pages and drawings from life. Each of these represent some aspect of a working process, whereby stories generally evolve from visual research and free-wheeling doodles. They are also 'unfinished' pieces created in a single sitting, not originally intended for publication, and for that reason perhaps more revealing of a personal style (and particular obsessions) than other more polished artwork.

128 pages long, and in a format that emulates my actual sketchbooks, The Bird King includes some written thoughts on the practice of drawing and explanatory notes for each image.

Originally intended as a small self-published collection for convention audiences, The Bird King has since become a popular reference, especially for new illustrators, and translated into Japanese, French, Spanish and other languages. In the US it is published as The Bird King: An Artist’s Notebook (Scholastic)

An expanded edition of The Bird King was published by Walker UK in 2019. It includes an additional 50 pages of selections from the intervening decade since the original volume was released: a few examples below. You can find out more here.