Origins

I'd like to share with you some behind the scenes concept drawings I made in the very early stages of developing my book, Ghost, Ghoul and Little Mouse.

This is one of the first drawings I did exploring the concept of a battle between a ghost and a ghoul over a house they both wish to haunt for themselves. To begin with the mouse in the story was going to just be more of a bystanding witness to Ghost and Ghoul’s battle but through discussions with the publisher,Oxford University Press, the mouse took much more of a central role in mediating the ghost and ghouls differences and guiding them to friendship.

This is one of the first character sketches I did of Ghost and Ghoul. Originally the main difference between the two characters was just their colours. Later, with Oxford University Press, I worked on differentiating more of their features.

I like silhouettes and found the silhouette of the house and the characters very interesting and atmospheric. In this image I like how the characters eyes pop out.

After completing a first draft of the text I started working on illustrating Little Mouse’s house and the surrounding environment. I was keen to illustrate the trees in particular in a style that I’d never seen before, like this swirly tree trunk and branches style that I designed.

After settling on a core design concept for the house and the immediate environment, I introduced Ghost and Ghoul to the setting. As you can see here both Ghost and Ghoul had white pupils in the early stages. I dropped that idea as they look better without the white pupils.

I was really keen to use house cutaway images in the story as I felt the story lent itself to this feature. I always liked cutaways in books I read growing up. It felt like getting a secret peek into the inside of otherwise private places.

Oxford University Press were keen for me to include more spooky house objects and décor in the house. Here you can see more spooky features developing.

And here you can see more neon orange appearing in the design. A feature discussed with OUP. Also, you can see Ghost and Ghoul acquiring different head gear and slight differing body base designs. Ghost has spiky frills and Ghoul has wavy frills at the bottom of their bodies.

Later, in the process of putting the book together with Oxford University Press, the cutaway house was reserved for the last image to give more impact.

For the big reveal of the transformation of Little Mouse’s house turning into a scaring school, we decided a vertical spread with the cutaway would be very striking. Here is a first attempt at the concept.

Thanks for reading guys!

Graham 🙂

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