Games Workshop conceptual artist Paul Jeacock says, "We wanted to change a lot about the Ogres – so now their background is very dark, like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. These Ogres want to eat your babies. They’re not the standard fantasy Ogre at all."

Paul creates pictures and large-scale sculptures to help both the book’s creators and the miniatures designers find the right feel for an army. As such, he has had a major influence on all aspects of this frightening new race.

"We went back to the original stories – all this stuff is rooted in folklore and comes from really old legends, which are much nastier than the modern, watered-down versions. You’d use these stories to scare your kids to stop them from wandering off up the mountain or into the woods. Because of that, the Ogres are very grotesque. They’re very, very nasty characters, with few redeeming features."

Paul, who has in the past worked as a comic artist for 2000 A.D. and as a film conceptual artist, notably for Henson’s Muppet company, says that the source material for the Ogres gave the project team loads of ideas. "Everyone wanted the same thing and started sparking ideas off each other straightaway. The meetings were great fun. We almost nailed the look immediately. There were some slight changes to it, but a lot of the images came out in the first couple of meetings."

Another influence on the book, especially on the Gnoblars, was the art of Brian Froud, the world-famous fantasy artist who spends much of his time painting fairies, goblins, and other otherworldly creatures from myth. (Froud also worked for Henson’s and designed the creatures for the films Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal).

"Artists dip into Brian Froud, because he has a good angle on fairies and the like, and the description of the Gnoblars was inspired a little by that, the kind of scrappy, disheveled goblin-type character," agrees Paul. "But there’s also a lot of the feral kid in there, the kind that runs wild on the street and starts lobbing rocks at you. Gnoblars are no threat on their own but, in large numbers, very dangerous."

Despite the Gnoblars’ innate wickedness, there is a comedy element to them. "It’s that nastiness that’s amusing," explains Paul. "They want to emulate the Ogres, to be bigger and nastier. Though they’re often lunch, they do have their own pecking order – there’s always someone being pushed around. Survival for them is hard, and it makes them very mean. But the Gnoblars and Ogres are part of the same world, and there is a good contrast between the vicious comedy of the Gnoblars and the nastiness of the Ogres."

Inspiration strikes Paul hard and fast, especially with something with such a rich background as the Ogre Kingdoms. This fact has made the book very enjoyable for him to work on. "Images started forming as soon as we stopped talking. I almost get a film in my head, in which I can see these creatures living and breathing. I have to catch them before they scurry away! That’s what I enjoyed most about the project, the pace of the ideas. Everyone was wired into the same thing and was just creating from scratch. I was able to play with a lot of things, and the whole world gelled really quickly for me."