Oozing with talent from every pore, and a pair of creative geniuses who do something that you seldom see in the world of children's publishing or illustration - paying their awesome success forward by helping others with an awesome creative blog and sizzling set of tutorials.

What more can you say about Robin and Lorenzo Etherington, long-time contributors to the mighty Phoenix Comic (which we've already covered in our #Booky100Keepers list), and creators of many books that are almost set up in a mini-shrine on our shelves.

Lorenzo's truly fantastic "How to Think when you Draw" and Robin's utterly brilliant "How to think when you Write" are books that we both find ourselves dragging off the shelves on a regular basis, to pore over, dip into and consume nuggets of glorious golden advice from.

We're not just addicted to their tutorial books though. I really love the back-burner-bubbling "Stranski" stuff, something that feels like a long-term obsession for the guys that hasn't quite been worked up into a finished story / graphic novel, but feels like something the world needs - a glorious fusion of film noir, adventure, gangster movie and kick-ass lion-tailed ladies ready to take on the world.

They've taxed our brains with the awesome "Von Doogan" series, they've twisted the afterworld inside out in "Long Gone Don" and have made us giggle like goons with "Monkey Nuts". They've made a success out of going down the crowdfunded / self-published route for a lot of their books (including restoring Monkey Nuts to the original large graphic novel format it so richly deserves).

We were fortunate enough to meet the guys and were delighted that they knew who we were, and actually thanked us for all our support over the years. They really are the bees knees, borne out by the fact that every single thing we've reviewed of theirs has hit the "Book of the Week" slot. Pretty nice going, guys!

Original review and article links:

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week Ending 7th February 2020: "How to Think When you Write" by Robin Etherington and Lorenzo Etherington (Kickstarter / Self Published)

Fantastic comic creating fun with The Etherington Brothers - The Story Museum, Oxford

ReadItDaddy's Second Book of the Week - Week Ending 15th April 2016 - "Von Doogan and the Great Air Race" by Lorenzo Etherington (David Fickling Books)

Long Gone Don Book 1 by Lorenzo and Robin Etherington (David Fickling Books)

The Phoenix Presents "Von Doogan and the Curse of the Golden Monkey" by Lawrence (Lorenzo) Etherington (David Fickling Books)

ReadItDaddy's Second Book of the Week - Week Ending 2nd August 2019: "How to Think when you Draw Volume 2" by The Etherington Brothers (Self Published)

ReadItDaddy's Comic of the Week - Week Ending 23rd February 2018 - "Monkey Nuts (Volume 1 and 2)" by Robin and Lorenzo Etherington (Lulu Self Publishing Platform)

ReadItDaddy's Picture / Comic Book of the Week - Week Ending 6th January 2017 - "Long Gone Don Book 2" by The Etherington Brothers (David Fickling Books)

ReadItDaddy's Second Book of the Week - Week Ending 19th August 2016 - "The Deluxe Collection - Volumes 1 and 2" by Lorenzo Etherington (Lulu Self Publishing)

ReadItDaddy's Book(s) of the Week - Week Ending 24th August 2018: "How to Think when you Draw" and "Deluxe Collection Volume III" by Lorenzo Etherington (Lulu / Self Published)

ReadItDaddy's Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 28th July 2017 - "The Art of Stranski" by Lorenzo Etherington (Kickstarter / Self Published)

Imagine waking up in the morning at 4 AM and instantly thinking to yourself "What can I draw today?"

Now imagine doing that - but doing it in a way where you're actively thinking about how you can share your incredible artistic knowledge with a whole stack of other people, from amateurs (like us) to professional artists looking to add a few tweaks to their game.

Lorenzo Etherington is a dude with a singularity inside his head, capable of drawing in the most incredible ideas through some mystical gravitational force, and translating them into glorious pieces of art - or awesome mind-expanding tutorials.

We've been following his "How to Think when you Draw" series online and in the pages of the fabulous Phoenix Comic for some time. Lorenzo doesn't just teach you how to draw a squirrel, a girl's hair, or a shattered window pane - he takes you through a thinking process that describes what you're trying to draw or visualise using a set of rules that seem so jaw-droppingly simple that they provide an instant confidence boost. "Can it really be that easy?" you start asking yourself - and as you start to scribble and draw some of the exercise topics, you find that the guy knows exactly what he's talking about.

"How to Think When you Draw" is now a hard-backed book available through Lorenzo's recent kickstarter, self published through Hulu. Giving Lorenzo an entirely free rein to produce a piece of work that draws (yeah we'll use that pun a lot) on the very best of the tutes made available previously, with a good few we hadn't seen before.

The book - as you'd expect - is just utterly fantastic, and for us it was really great to have a lot of the tutorials organised by category and available in one place - in a book that we can fold flat and start drawing from. YASSSSSSSS!!!

Follow some of these and you'll start to think before you lift your pencil or pen to paper! It really does work!

Each tutorial section also comes with a vast array of complimentary source material and drawings to help you get up to speed once you've got the gist of what you want to do. Needless to say both C and I absolutely loved all the figurative stuff, particularly drawing gorgeous Stranski-esque ladies.

In our particular level of the kickstarter, this amazing book also came with "The Deluxe Collection Volume 3" - Another huge slice of Lorenzo's personal art back catalogue. 600 pages in fact, blimey guvnor!

A colossal volume comprising 4 years of awesome artistic creativity from an absolute DUDE!

As we've previously said with the last couple of editions of this mighty behemoth of artistic inspiration, the Deluxe Collection III is chock full of amazing ideas, character art, scenic stuff - heck, you name it and it's in here somewhere. In Lorenzo's trademark "Noir-Punk" style, you'll find everything from Stranski girls to kittens driving mechs, stunning Tiki statues or cute little buildings perfect for shoehorning into your favourite RPGs.

Inspiration wise, it's impossible not to flick through this and soak up some of that artistic genius - in fact in conjunction with "How to Think when you Draw" you'll have more than enough source material here to really get your skills up to scratch.

C was so inspired by these that she dug out all our previous Lorenzo books and is now going through them all again, making little doodles and notes as she goes. I love the fact that I'll be off somewhere else in the house and I'll suddenly hear a squeal of delight, the thumping of feet and her appearing at the door to show me some other new little marvel she's discovered in these.

So there you go, a huge thanks to Lorenzo for those early mornings, for the colossal effort involved in producing such a massive body of work - it is worth it dude, it does pay off and you have definitely inspired us so many times to pick up our art materials and get drawing.

C's best bit: Mech-commander Kittens (I think she still wants a 'how to think when you draw' tute on Kittens, so perhaps for Volume 2?)

Daddy's favourite bit: I get completely lost in the imaginary alt-universe of a world that still riffs on 1930s and 40s movies and film noir with a sometimes sci-fi and modern twist. Just too, too good!

Check out Lorenzo and Robin's awesome blog over at http://theetheringtonbrothers.blogspot.com

"How to think when you draw" and Deluxe Collection Volume III were available via Kickstarter (self purchased, not supplied for review).