As many of you hopefully already know, I'm releasing my first ever picture book next year, with the artist Eva Byrne, called The Terrified Troll. It's initially coming out as a signed, limited edition, the print run being based on the orders we got to it when we ran a fundraiser in late 2023. We're planning to release it in a more widely available edition after that, ideally with the help of a traditional publisher.

I had a meeting with Eva yesterday to look at where we're at and to set ourselves up for the final push. We're VERY close to the finishing post -- just eight pages of interior art to go!! It would have been even less, but I added in another couple of pages -- I'm loving Eva's art so much, I wanted more of it!!

I'm sharing one of Eva's latest finished pages, which comes near the end of our little Troll's long, troubling night. I absolutely adore the colour scheme of this one -- so subtle, so simple, yet so effective.

We're hoping to get the book all done and dusted by March or April, though there's a good chance it might stretch on a month or two longer than that, depending on how the editing and proofing processes go -- Eva wants to go through the entire book again when she's done, to make some tweaks and adjustments, and then we'll have to get proof copies made up, to check that the colours all come out the way Eva wants, and that everything aligns correctly. But the end IS in sight -- hurrah!!!

I'm honestly a bit blown away by how this is shaping up. It's far more evolved than I had anticipated back at the start, and I think the guys who pre-ordered are going to get an awful lot for their money!!