Artist SOPHIE ILES explains how her love of Doctor Who helped her to raise money for those in need during lockdown.

A self-portrait of Sophie Iles.

“I wanted to give people some motivation to watch,” says Sophie.

“Iwant to do some drawing live online for charity.”

I called out my idea to my husband Jamie on a sleepy Friday morning in October. It was just an idle thought, a desire to help the charity FareShare UK in response to news about children going hungry during lockdown. But, as Jamie knew, I’d tried raising money before, drawing live online on Twitch for Red Nose Day in 2018, when I raised just £20 and felt crushed. I’m a bit more established now, not least because in 2020 I provided artwork this year for the special Doctor Who Lockdown webcast The Raggedy Doctor by Amelia Pond .

Even so, I wanted to give people some motivation to watch - and I realised they should be given a chance to take part by deciding what I’d draw. That’s where the idea came from to produce, in one long sitting, an A to Z of Doctor Who characters, chosen by vote.