GREEN MAN Facts & Figures
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The story is told in 320 pictures on 48 pages.
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The source material takes up around 200GB of disk space.
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Each picture can take up to a day's photo editing.
- However, it took many more than 320 days to create the book!
Reculver
The medieval town of Culver is sited at Reculver on the Kent coast.
Reculver is the site of a Roman fort and the remains of a dismantled church moved stone by stone because of the coastal erosion.
The 'Dam Busters' used Reculver as a practice beach during WWII.
You can just about see what Reculver looks like now on the screensaver on Anika's laptop on page 5.
The off-shore wind farm that can be seen on Page 18 was opportunely built during the course of making the book!
Some more on locations
Oxbridge is a collective word for Oxford and Cambridge.
There are 'Trinity Colleges' at both Oxford and Cambridge.
Devon University is based on The University of Exeter, which now has campuses in Cornwall too.
The first picture in the book is a composite of the Exeter campus.
Hornstrup is the highest point in Denmark (...which isn't saying much).
The Isere region of France doubles for Denmark in the book.
Shingle Street on the Suffolk coast was once thought to be the location of a failed German invasion during WWII.
...and some more
Many of the characters and some places are named after friends and family (but not necessarily because they share anything in common!).
Thomas lives over a music shop called "Wardle's Music"
"Meet your Ancestors", the TV show Thomas Swift presents in his spare time will feature in future adventures (see Page 21).
U.M.M, the Unexplained Mysteries Ministry translates as M.M.I in French and M.U.M in German.
For Playmobil enthusiasts!
The pirate galleon that can be seen in the museum display case (Page 20) is a custom replica of the 'colour' ship that is displayed in the Nuremberg toy museum.
The museum contains some rare figures sought after by collectors and wargamers.
One of the rarest items used in the book is the milkmaid yoke seen on page 17.
Another rare item used in several pictures is the british policeman's helmet which appeared in early Playmobil sets produced by Marx in the UK, and on keychains produced by Geobra Brandstatter.
The beach theme with figures in swimsuits was opportunely launched after the book had been drafted.
Cars in the UK are left-hand drive, which means all steering wheels (apart for Thomas' car), had to magically appear on the right side of vehicles (e.g. see Page 27).
An initial inspiration for the book was the idea of Playmobil figures playing with Playmobil toys to scale. The idea pre-dated the Playmobil 'mini series' of magnetic playsets, with toy-scale Playmobil, by several years.
