Drawing
Research
Characters
Backgrounds

Often it is the publisher who decides whether the pictures are going to be in colour or not. But both Tim (the author) and Eric (the illustrator) felt that all the Zoom books should have black-and-white illustrations.

Eric used a pencil to draw them. He says he uses LOTS of pencils when he's drawing the pictures for a Zoom book!

Eric's Drawing Tips
Eric uses so many pencils, that he likes to use them up right to the very end. When the pencil stub gets so small he can't fit it into the sharpener anymore, he tapes the blunt end of the stub to the blunt end of a longer pencil. This allows him to sharpen it once more. And as a bonus, he now has a pencil with two sharp ends!