Torben Kuhlmann

Germany

Torben Kuhlmann was recognised as a gifted draftsman early in his childhood. He later studied illustration and design at the Hamburg University for Applied Sciences, finishing his studies by creating the children’s book Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse, the first book in his hugely successful mouse adventures series.

In this post, Torben talks about the creation of his mouse adventures: Lindbergh, Armstrong, Edison, and Einstein. Originally published in German and English by NordSüd and NorthSouth, this incredible series has been translated into over thirty languages.

Visit Torben Kuhlmann’s website

Torben: It’s been eight years since my mouse adventures series started with the book Lindbergh.

A lot has happened since then and three other inventive mice have had even greater adventures in my books: Armstrong, Edison, Einstein.

However, a few peculiarities are the same for all mouse adventures. At the beginning there is always the big question: What if…? What if many great pioneering feats and achievements in human history were actually the work of ingenious mice?

That thought was the starting point for Lindbergh and along with it came creative decisions that have defined the series ever since. One goal is always a degree of realism. I see a special appeal in drawing a realistic portrait of a bygone era.

And on this realistic stage, I tell the fantastical story of mice influencing human history in hitherto unknown ways, for example: by inspiring a famous pilot or a Nobel Prize winner in theoretical physics.

At the beginning of my process stands a sketchbook. The first task is to find some key scenes. Most of the time, a rough overall picture of the story emerges quite quickly. In Lindbergh it was a mouse’s meeting with a bat that got everything rolling.

The first sketches depicted that encounter and were soon joined by the mouse’s first inventions: flying machines that were clearly inspired by the anatomy of bats.

I then develop the concept further throughout the sketchbook and collect ideas in the form of rough scribbles, story bits, and early text ideas. Gradually, a typical storyboard emerges from this, not dissimilar to that of a movie.

My latest mouse adventure, Einstein, was also created this way, although the process was much more streamlined compared to the rocky start with Lindbergh. In Einstein the initial question was: What if a time-traveling mouse had inspired Albert Einstein’s thoughts on the relativity of time? Unlike the previous books, however, it was clear from the outset who would be the namesake of the story. And so the first sketches were portraits of a young Albert Einstein with a mouse hiding from him.

The topic of time and time travel is also indicated here visually, since several clocks appear in the picture. These first sketches later became the cover illustration. It was a nice opportunity (and a challenge) to have the namesake finally appear as a portrait on this latest book cover.

In general, the appeal of this fourth mouse adventure was the opportunity to play with paradoxes and time loops; something that is only possible thanks to the time travel theme. Within the story, the mouse—seeking to build a time machine—is inspired by Einstein’s work. And in turn, a young Einstein—writing his theories about space and time—is inspired by the mouse who is stranded in the past. It’s both a causality loop and a paradox if you think about it. A complete storyboard of the story developed very quickly in my sketchbook.

One idea quickly led to the next. It was very satisfying to see how these pieces of the puzzle emerged and gradually fit together: a late arrival to a cheese festival in Bern, stories of Swiss watchmakers, and last but not least Einstein’s Bern miracle year in 1905.

In addition to completing the sketchbook, work on the final text begins, first in handwritten sketches and gradually in a refined form. In the final picture book, the text and images should fit closely together. I often allow the illustrations to take on the narrative focus. Why should I repeat something in the text that can easily be observed in the pictures?

The last step is to create the illustrations. I use a combination of several techniques here. It begins with a pencil drawing on watercolour paper. This drawing is worked out more and more precisely and finally executed with waterproof ink. This drawing is then coloured layer by layer with watercolours. For a 128-page book, 64 double pages have to be planned and illustrated. But it is all the more fulfilling when all the elements come together in the end and you see the result of the work that has occupied you for a solid year.

This is a good moment to announce that the series of mouse adventures is far from over. I am playing with some early ideas at the moment. Let’s see which one will grow into a new picture book. There are still many groundbreaking inventions and pioneering acts that might have some as-of-yet unknown connections to inventive and inquisitive mice.

And slowly but steadily the 10th anniversary of Lindbergh is approaching. Let’s see what the ingenious mice have up their non-existent sleeves for that occasion.