Frances Castle has been working as a freelance illustrator since 2005 after beginning her career in the computer games industry.

Frances is inspired by comic book art and vintage children’s books from the 50’s and 60’s, and loves good charity shop finds of old magazines, books and packaging. She is also a very keen historian and is currently illustrating a graphic novel documenting the search into her own Family Tree.

She usually works digitally, drawing with a Wacom Tablet straight onto the computer. She then uses scanned and pre-painted textures to add depth and colour to her work. Recently she has been experimenting with printmaking, particularly Gocco prints and Lino.

Frances has worked with a broad range of editorial and publishing clients including Readers Digest, The Guardian, BBC, Random House, Macmillan, Quarto, Cambridge University Press and the BBC History website.

books