Martin Handford spent much of his childhood drawing and his earliest influences were cinema epics and playing with toy soldiers. After art college, he began working as a freelance illustrator specialising in drawing crowd scenes for numerous clients. Martin now gathers his inspiration from a huge variety of sources; films, visiting museums and art galleries, reading comics and books, and collecting ephemera and trivia. He is fascinated by crowds, and is attracted to their vibes, patterns and details – especially humour; “I love their movement and energy.” Gradually, from all this meticulous research, the inspiration for a picture emerges, which Martin embellishes with his own ideas to create astonishing scenes. Each picture takes Martin many months to draw. “As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him,” he explains.

Readers can visit the sound stage to watch a song and dance rehearsal, plan out your own film plots in the writers’ room, choose a star-studded cast, then step on to the red carpet for a glitzy, glamorous movie premiere through an array of games, puzzles, searches and stickers. There are a handful of series of books that were available 20 years ago that I credit with getting a generation of reluctant readers to engage with text and start a lifelong journey of reading – the incredible work of Martin Handford in the Where’s Wally series is one of them.

Martin Handford spent much of his childhood drawing and his earliest influences were cinema epics and playing with toy soldiers. After art college, he began working as a freelance illustrator specialising in drawing crowd scenes for numerous clients. Martin now gathers his inspiration from a huge variety of sources; films, visiting museums and art galleries, reading comics and books, and collecting ephemera and trivia. He is fascinated by crowds, and is attracted to their vibes, patterns and details – especially humour; “I love their movement and energy.” Gradually, from all this meticulous research, the inspiration for a picture emerges, which Martin embellishes with his own ideas to create astonishing scenes. Each picture takes Martin many months to draw. “As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him,” he explains.

Readers can visit the sound stage to watch a song and dance rehearsal, plan out your own film plots in the writers’ room, choose a star-studded cast, then step on to the red carpet for a glitzy, glamorous movie premiere through an array of games, puzzles, searches and stickers. There are a handful of series of books that were available 20 years ago that I credit with getting a generation of reluctant readers to engage with text and start a lifelong journey of reading – the incredible work of Martin Handford in the Where’s Wally series is one of them.

Martin Handford spent much of his childhood drawing and his earliest influences were cinema epics and playing with toy soldiers. After art college, he began working as a freelance illustrator specialising in drawing crowd scenes for numerous clients. Martin now gathers his inspiration from a huge variety of sources; films, visiting museums and art galleries, reading comics and books, and collecting ephemera and trivia. He is fascinated by crowds, and is attracted to their vibes, patterns and details – especially humour; “I love their movement and energy.” Gradually, from all this meticulous research, the inspiration for a picture emerges, which Martin embellishes with his own ideas to create astonishing scenes. Each picture takes Martin many months to draw. “As I work my way through a picture, I add Wally when I come to what I feel is a good place to hide him,” he explains.

Readers can visit the sound stage to watch a song and dance rehearsal, plan out your own film plots in the writers’ room, choose a star-studded cast, then step on to the red carpet for a glitzy, glamorous movie premiere through an array of games, puzzles, searches and stickers. There are a handful of series of books that were available 20 years ago that I credit with getting a generation of reluctant readers to engage with text and start a lifelong journey of reading – the incredible work of Martin Handford in the Where’s Wally series is one of them.