I’m surprised Payne hasn’t officially the illustrator permanently since he’s that awesome. Like hell he even added little details from his previous work.
While he would have been great, he apparently wasn't mentally or emotionally able to work on more books after "Thomas the Tank Engine". Awdry would have loved to have him, but he couldn't hire him again. So he had to go with Dalby.
Like what was mentioned, he had a mental breakdown due to the war and if the date of his death being around the time of either Thomas or James' book was release is anything to go by, while it's not confirmed, it feels plausible that the cause wasn't pleasant.
Now we know why Awdry was satisfied with Reginald's illustrations. Unlike the previous illustrator, Payne was already familiar with drawing steam engines. And with that context, Henry's look in Thomas the Tank Engine suddenly adds up. I think had Payne carried on, Awdry might have either asked him to go back and redraw Henry, or keep the design seeing as it's based off a real engine compared to Dalby's design.
It'd also be interesting to see how he'd tackle the industrial feel to Vicarstown and every location on Sodor. Also, when comparing the layout of Wellsworth yard with Dalby's redraw, Payne really captured Awdry's trackplan for it.
In my opinion Payne and awdry would’ve been a great team especially given their love of locomotives something that the other illustrators during wilberts era especially Middleton and Dalby don’t have
4:01 - 4:06 I really found it funny on how you said, "I'm probably not going to be satisfied until we uncover a photograph of the man..." I think the photos of both William and Payne are yet to be found, they are probably hidden well within the huge library, but maybe they're organised by category.
I actually find it very interesting and more intriguing that you're gathering more evidence and artwork of Reginald Payne so we could see that he was more than just the illustrator of Thomas the tank engine! And...I immediately fell in love from the moment I saw his detailed drawings of trains in the book you were showing in this video! He's my other favourite illustrator because not only do I praise his Thomas illustrations, but also his other illustrated that include trains!
Thank you soo so much for sharing these and showing us more of it soon. I would love to collect all of Payne‘s work aswell, as he is my preferred illustrator for the Railway series.
I was also thinking about that too, though I always thought of Henry as a GWR Engine built by a GWR Engineer. Since George Jackson Churchward designed the Great Bear and was deemed a failure, his final creation was Henry, meant to be an improvement of the Great Bear. When Churchward built Henry, he was dissatisfied to have similar results from his previous locomotive, so he sold off Henry for cheap to Sir Topham Hatt as a new engine for the North Western Railway. My theory was that Henry was built by either George Jackson Churchward (in response to Gresley's more successful A1 Locomotive) or Charles Collett (as a new experiment) due to the engine's similarities with the Great Bear.
HOLD ON I'm fairly certain I had a copy of that book when I was a kid - I will have to dig through the boxes of my old things when I have the opportunity to see if I can find it. I could be very wrong though, since I don't entirely remember and it seems a little early for something my dad would've owned since I know it was his. ah well I would like to find that book no matter what it turns out to be
A couple of of points on this video, one was a mistake by ClickClackTrack, he talks about Henry yet shows pictures of Gordon. Henry was Green. The other one by Reginald Payne with an inscription "Flying Scotsman 1870' this should have surely been 'The Flying Scotsman'. Flying Scotsman, without the was the locomotive built in 1923. The train which the drawing show was always 'The Flying Scotsman' as far as I know.
Henry was painted blue in Edward, Gordon and Henry, the fourth story of The Three Railway Engines and remained in that colour till his own book 'Henry the Green Engine' returning in his original intended colour 'green'.
@@Milos15GameplaysYT Having just looked at my complete collection (one book of the original 26 Rev W Awdry books). Henry was painted into blue in the last illustration of The Three Railway Engines and was shown half way through painting so was in blue and green. He was repainted back into green before the beginning of Troublesome Engines the book before Henry the Green Engine. Between then he was only shown in his blue livery once, which was not the illustration shown in the video so that must have been Gordon. I believe the illustration was the second one in the Thomas the Tank Engine book which was Gordon.
@@andyaccount The illustration that Track showed and what I was talking about is of Thomas and Henry alone in the Shed from "Thomas' Train". Not counting the one at the end of the video showing Thomas (viewed from the left) and Gordon at the station. Also, thanks for the correction as I missed Troublesome Engines.
