F is for Flying Machines #atoz2025 #booksky

Week 2 of the A to Z Challenge and I’m on to Flying Machines! I’m continuing the illustration theme with a discussion of how Prince Engineer George developed a solution to the promise made in the first of my Princelings books and how this developed through the series.

The ten Princelings books and the two for younger readers, Messenger Misadventures and Cavies of Flexford Common all have illustrations. Most are chapter headings. Cavies is designed for younger readers (c 7 yrs old, Key Stage 1 in UK educational parlance). That has illustrations throughout.

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Flying Machines: from biplanes to flying boats

I don’t know where I first got the idea of introducing biplanes into the Princelings series, but they turn up right at the start of book 3. Fred and George are waiting anxiously for the arrival of Princess Kira from her home in the south. George is hopping up and down with excitement, because her brother has rumoured that he’s got one of these new-fangled flying machines from the ‘continent’. He desperately hopes her brother will be flying Kira here.

They are about a century behind our world, but get going even faster than we did. Development from the Wright brothers to flying boats took about 30 years in our world (30 years later we were flying around the moon). It takes less than 12 to get to flying boats in the world of the Princelings. But then, we had commercial interests and a world war in between. George only has to overcome lack of money, conniving inventors, and a revolution.

If you’re interested in commercial flying boats, take a look at my father’s memoirs, White Water Landings.

The Illustrations

From the visit of the first biplane, George built his own, and took it to the Inn of the Seventh Happiness at a key stage in book 3. We left him getting on with his inventions until book 6, whose subplot involves a kidnapped George, and industrial espionage over the flying machines. Victor becomes the hero of the hour. By book 7, George has determined that single wing aircraft are the way forward, and Willoughby is rescued from Castle Vexstein on one. How he gets onto it and climbs in is something only a ninja narrator would know.

In book 8 Dylan has need of a quick journey from the inn at 7H to Buckmore, and he finds it a fascinating experience, despite there only being one wing either side. George is developing both passenger and freight machines, and by book 9 he’s ready to send the prototype flying boat across the Atlantic. After a few mishaps, he ‘s finally ready to try again in book 10. By which time the rebels want to burn all the flying machines. They might be called Luddites, really.

I start by using pencil (Derwent Cassell HB or 2B) on paper. Then I use an inkpen over to create the line drawing (I have a set of three Pilot Drawing pens, nos 01, 03, and 05). After that, I usually erase the pencil. By book 9 I was doing all my illustrations on the iPad, and I could take a JPEG copy of a hand-drawn castle, and amend it, or change it about a bit, rather than start from scratch.

All were done in the same way. These come from books 3. The Princelings and the Lost City, 6. Bravo Victor, 7. Willoughby the Narrator, 8.The Princelings of the North, 9. Chronicles of Marsh, and 10 Princelings Revolution. There are a few more illustrations of planes on the ground, but they are nothing more than the sorts of squiggles in the top picture, really. There are also flying boats on the covers of Bravo Victor, Chronicles of Marsh and Princelings Revolution, but my cover artist, Dani English at Kanizo.co.uk did those.

I’m Jemima Pett, author, blogger, illustrator and guinea pig wrangler. My interests are in fantasy, environment, science (inc. fiction) and thrillers, to name a few things. This is my nth AtoZ Challenge. Mostly I talk about books. This time I’m talking about something I do without much thinking about… my illustrations.