The first thing that came to mind when Illustration Friday's suggested topic word of 'Scary' was remembering all the dressing up and anticipation for the North American festival of Halloween. Which as an occasion is catching on in my Aussie neighbourhood more and more each year. 'The harvesting of the lollies' night is one candy companies, retailers and and (lets not forget the kids) are loving. A bag of free candy from the neighbours just for dressing up! Wow! Kids aren't stupid.
The second thing that came to mind was a book I illustrated in 2005 for Blake Education. The images here are just some from 'I'm Not Scared'. This was for their Gigglers series and was aimed at reluctant primary school readers. Above is a page where an Ogre appears and below is the printed spread where the Bunyip is appearing.
The story was about a father and daughter ghost talking about what they found most scary.
Each scary 'monster' mentioned manifested. Then, as each monster mentions what scares them it then manifested. And so on. It was a great little book written by author Wendy Blaxland and was great fun to create and play around with scary fun characters, including the father and daughter ghosts, an ogre, a giant and Australia's own billabong frightener the Bunyip.
The illustrations were created digitally from scans of the roughs and was the first book that I extensively used photoshop filters for texture. Below, is the cover image showing some of the character faces.
