Scarecrow Standees

Quockerwodger the Bucket Scarecrow and a couple of Winnowings in front of a cornfield.

Just thought I'd share a fun little part of my creative process.

A significant component of the development for my children's book, The Scarecrow Harvest Festival, involves making miniature pop-up figures or "standees" for my son. He loves these little cardboard guys and our house has amassed quite the collection of them. In addition to standees of my own drawings, I've also built paper figures from other sources such as Ravensblight.com (which is a fantastic website, by the way. You should definitely check it out for some great spooky, atmospheric artwork, music, paper toys, games and lots more. Seriously, just go take a look), The Papertoy Monsters Kit by Brian Castleforte and a bunch of other paper toy artists, and even some pretty cool pop-up playsets from Wendy's.

I usually start with an idea my son gives me like "a bucket scarecrow" or "a swamp witch" or "a praying mantis ghost" and just let the image take me where it will. It's a fun, loose drawing exercise. Advanced doodling really. But it helps me build up the world of the Scarecrow Harvest Festival, and who knows- I might even expand these characters out into future books. There's certainly a lot of fun things I could do with them.

(Also, sorry for the blurriness in some of these photos. My phone's camera is all scratched up and it's going to be a bit before I can get a new one.)

Gowpen the Counting Scarecrow and Haspenald the Star-Gazing Scarecrow also having a wander through the cornfield.

An old turnip-headed scarecrow (with teru-teru-bozu friends) and a watermelon scarecrow hanging out with Jonny Chiba's Nom Nom monster from the PaperToy Monsters Kit

A pair of Mantis Ghosts and a Swamp Crab trying to catch the last subway car of the night.

A Walking Mangrove Tree and a... Brain Plant (based loosely on a drawing of a D&D Xorn my son saw) waiting in line with an ax-wielding werewolf from Ravensblight for tickets to a Tangerine Dream concert.

The Brain Plant having an important business meeting with a Grim Reaper from Ravensblight and a couple cavern adventurers from a Wendy's toy.

Some more Wendy's toy characters inviting a Pascagoula Robot-Mummy (version 2.5) to their sweet New Year's Eve party.