Ben Cort is an award-winning illustrator whose books have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold millions of copies around the world.
He is the illustrator of the phenomenally popular Underpants series written by Claire Freedman. The books feature pants loving aliens, dinosaurs, pirates, monsters and even Father Christmas! Three animations for SKY TV have been produced by Tiger Aspect, one of which was BAFTA nominated and the Aliens starred in their very own theatre show. Another of Ben and Claire’s picture books, Monstersaurus, was also turned into a successful stage show which toured the UK.
As a lifelong Beatles fan, Ben was thrilled to be commissioned to illustrate Ringo Starr’s Octopus’s Garden as a children’s picture book.
Ben has appeared at many of the UK’s literary festivals including Hay, Edinburgh, and Bath and illustrated the World Book Day title Everyone Loves Underpants.
Frequently asked questions
Why did you want to be a children’s book illustrator?
My dad was an artist and being surrounded by his artwork as I was growing up, definitely had a huge influence on me. I have always loved drawing and painting and have been inspired by the work of numerous artists, including the lovely humorous drawings of Quentin Blake, the colourful paintings of Brian Wildsmith and the dynamic comic book art of Jack Kirby. I studied illustration at art college and with the visual side of storytelling being extremely appealing to me, I realised that illustrating children's books offered me the widest range of interesting and enjoyable subjects to work on.
What was your favourite picture book as a child?
The book that made the biggest impression on me as a young child was a book my mum wrote and my dad illustrated called Little Oleg. I have very vivid memories of this as a child and it was a pleasure to work on reformatting it for its 50th Anniversary reprint in 2016.
I was also very fond of Angela Banner’s Ant and Bee books. I loved her simple line drawings and use of flat bold colours to create a cosy surreal world full of humorous details, which I was happy to lose myself in.
What type of books do you like to illustrate?
Fantasy based books are my absolute favourite to illustrate as they give me plenty of scope to let my imagination run wild, creating weird and wonderful creatures with no restrictions as to how they should look.
How do you illustrate a picture book?
Once I have accepted a text to illustrate I will often spend a lot of time creating the characters to populate the story. When I am happy with my characters I begin roughing out the spreads.
I very rarely rough out a book in page order and prefer to work on the ones that I have the clearest vision of first. Sometimes the transition from initial thumbnail sketch to finished rough is very swift. However, it’s often a much more protracted process involving numerous readjustments to characters, poses, expressions, compositions etc... until I’m satisfied that I have got it right. I find Photoshop an invaluable tool at this stage as it enables me to make rapid changes to my roughs without the need for more drawing.
After my roughs have been approved by the publisher I then complete the final artwork in one of two ways, either in Photoshop or using acrylics. When I’m working digitally I paint numerous coloured swatches, create interesting textures and make pencil line drawings of all the characters and objects that appear in the book. I then scan these elements into my Mac and assemble them to create the finished artwork. When working in acrylics I paint on paper stretched onto drawing boards - I enjoy the hands on approach of this medium and find it incredibly rewarding. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages and I find that the text tends to dictate which approach I feel will work best.
When finished, my painted artwork is sent to the printer’s to be scanned and proofed, whereas my digital work only needs proofing. Once I receive the proofs I will check them and ask the printer to make colour changes if necessary. I will often make final alterations and additions to my artwork via the printer’s digital files prior to printing.
“I’ve had a life-long passion for art. Many of the characters I used to sketch in school exercise books came in handy later on in my career!”