It’s been a little while since my book, Freaks, came out in April, but besides going about my everyday life as a teacher and coming up with new story ideas, I have been busy doing some illustrations for the hardback edition (coming out in January 2013 in the UK and US). This is a bit of (another) dream-come-true for me, as I spent most of my teenage years wanting to be an illustrator. Back then I wanted to write and draw my own comic book, but this is just about as good. And drawing comics eats up even more time than writing. I get little enough sleep as it is.
The publishers (Scholastic US) wanted ‘doodle-style’ pictures, which were originally meant to look like part of a book one of the characters was writing. I’m not sure whether I’m allowed to put the actual finished pictures up before the new edition is out, so instead I raided my sketchbook. (I don’t know why, but I always find sketchbooks more interesting than finished pieces anyway). So please excuse the scrappy style and yellowed moleskine paper, and I hope you enjoy the sneak preview. Also please excuse the zombie cow. He actually has nothing to do with ‘Freaks’ (although maybe if I do a sequel)…
Thank you so much for this post Kieran, I cant wait to see the finished hardback version of Freaks!
4 Comments
Anya
Looks awesome!
Jesse Owen
Wow, I love these sketches 🙂
SisterSpooky
great illustrations! Flossy is SO cute!
Ellie Warren
I absolutely adore these…I think I probably like unfinished sketches more than polished final illustrations 🙂