I’m an Orkney‑based illustrator working in haunted‑ink, storm‑lit realism, and mythic gothic storytelling. My art grows out of the islands themselves — their loneliness, their wind‑carved cliffs, their heavy skies, and the quiet emotional weight that settles over the sea. I create in a place where storms feel like memory, and memory feels like weather. BurnsInHell is the name I give to that world. Over the years I’ve shaped my own vision of Frankenstein — not as a simple retelling of Mary Shelley’s novel, but as a personal mythology rooted in Orkney’s storms and the emotional landscape I live inside. My Monster isn’t a creature of bolts and stitches. He’s a tall, skeletal figure with skull‑like anatomy, long tangled hair, and eyes that carry a lifetime of sorrow. I draw him as someone who remembers everything: the cruelty, the abandonment, the brief moments of hope, and the endless grief that followed. Illustration by illustration, he became a presence rather than a character — a figure who keeps returning in new moods, new storms, and new interpretations. My haunted‑ink style — dry‑brush strokes, splattered shadows, and cold storm‑lit colours — became the right language for him. It’s a way of carving emotion directly into the page. Every line is a gust of wind. Every shadow is a memory he can’t escape. This mixture of illustration, lore, and personal interpretation grew into its own world: a gothic, storm‑lit realism that ties all my projects together, from the Orkney expansions to the tarot decks to the illustrated editions of classic texts. BurnsInHell is where I gather all of this — the Monster, the storms, the Orkney landscapes, the evolving mythology, and the ongoing creative experiments. It isn’t a finished archive. It’s a living one. Every new illustration adds another fragment to the world, another memory to the Monster, another storm to the islands I draw. This is the place where my work grows, shifts, and deepens as I continue exploring who the Monster is, what he remembers, and how he moves through the haunted landscapes I create for him.
