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In the Studio: Owen Gent

May 13, 2026

Agatha Christie is queen of the slow reveal, so when it came to illustrating one of her classics, Owen Gent says patience was key.

My work is quite ominous,’ says Gent, speaking from his not-at-all-ominous, sunlit, art- and plant-filled shared studio in Bristol, while his rough-coated Bedlington whippet patters up for attention. ‘I love pieces that don’t show everything straight away. I like looking askance at things. That’s ideal for telling a mystery, and no doubt why Folio came to me for this.’

‘This’ is Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, detective Hercule Poirot’s third outing, and the novel that came to define the murder-mystery twist ending. The British Crime Writers’ Association voted Ackroyd the best crime novel ever. Owen, whose first passion was oil painting before training as an illustrator 15 years ago, reaches for a thick stack of paper to show how his artwork for Folio’s new edition took shape.

‘I’ve done a lot of book cover work, but rarely internal illustrations throughout a novel,’ he explains. ‘I could tell right away that one challenge with this project was going to be injecting hints of narrative without giving too much away.’

Owen began with the audiobook of Ackroyd. ‘I listened first just as a reader, to experience the story. Then the next several times through, I sat in front of big sheets of paper with a pencil, just scribbling and brain-splurging character ideas.

‘I also researched specifics. What would a 1920s dictaphone look like? What does a Tunisian dagger with an intricate hilt look like? It was a mixture of researching and sketching, thinking about which scenes are pivotal and have the greatest visual interest. I had Pinterest boards open to store references, such as for 1920s clothing. If I’m sketching and thinking about where to place a figure, I need to know what’s around them – how a specific table or parasol would look. I don’t consciously think about work in progress unless I have a piece of paper in my hand. I’ve trained myself for that to be when ideas flow. It’s less romantic, maybe, but far more practical.’

And that means it’s a deeply involved process, so Owen values being able to step away into the social space of his studio. ‘There are other illustrators here, and an architect, animators and designers. I’m surrounded by people creating amazing things, so to have a cup of tea and a chat, I do thrive off that.’

His working practice has evolved as his life has changed. ‘In my younger days I’d work until three or four in the morning. But now I have a young daughter, I’m up from around 5 a.m. playing with her, reading stories and making breakfast.’

From a longlist of about 20 concepts, with rough compositional sketches, Owen and the Folio team settled on seven. The next stage of creation involves a very traditional medium. ‘It’s gouache – which is somewhere between watercolour and acrylic, and enables me to gradually layer up washes and textures – on paper, everything done by hand, in monochrome shades of blue.’ The resulting painting is then scanned into Photoshop. ‘I’ll add in other details and textures, also all handmade, but amalgamated in Photoshop. And I’ll isolate the colour work and edit everything digitally from there.’

This combined technique gives Owen versatility at the crucial colourisation stage. ‘What I need is the tone and the brushstrokes and the depth, then I can keep refining the colour until everything works within a picture. The fish that act as a frame for the characters in one Ackroyd illustration began white. Then I tried black. Then gold. They’ve been on a whole journey to the soft pink they are now.’ Owen’s final pass was to harmonise colouration across the entire spread of illustrations. ‘You go back and make sure everything is singing together.’

The resulting vivid edition of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has delighted its creator as much as it will its readers. ‘I wanted to do something with Folio from the moment I graduated,’ Owen says, ‘and working with them and the Agatha Christie Estate on this project has just been a dream.’

Illustrations: © Owen Gent from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Photography: © Felix Russell-Saw
Article written by Victoria James