ABCD&D

Some time ago now, I attended a children's book illustration evening class.  Sadly, student numbers were too low to keep the class going, so we only had one session, but in that session we discussed and started designing our own alphabet letters.

I liked this task, as for as long as I can remember I've been drawing people's names on their birthday card envelopes as different monsters or weird creatures.  I dug out a couple of Will's envelopes for you to see!

(In fact, over the years, whole stories have developed across Will's envelopes, such as alien invaders overthrowing the Monkey King.. not exactly Game of Thrones, but epic enough for an envelope...!  My favourite ones to draw though are basic little monsters.)

Which is why I went down the spooky/monster route when it came to sketching some alphabet ideas in the class.  The tutor said 'Draw what you love!'

On the bus on the way home from the college, I tried to think of an encompassing theme for my alphabet (which I resolved I wanted to do, even if the class no longer ran).  I love Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, and that's how I came up with ABCD&D!

However, D&D monsters are not known for their cuteness, but I thought that baby monsters could be cute..  All babies are cute!  So it was decided - baby monsters for lower case, and adult (or parent) monsters for upper case.

So far, I've been posting the finished letters up on Beholder Pie.  Will writes excellent descriptions to accompany each letter's creature - you can read the one for 'A' here if you like.  I have just finished 'G', and will post the letters so far and accompanying sketches here over the next couple of days.

For now, here is the finished 'A', which didn't differ much at all from the initial sketch above!