52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 41

Freehand outline, cut with scissors from black card, and pieces glued down, collage-style, onto A4 white card, to enhance the face's axis of symmetry. This cutting style is called Notan.

Week 41: Black + White

Update:

People liked my giraffe finger puppet a few weeks ago, so here's a zebra. Cut from two pieces of watercolour paper, markings drawn with a black "Stain" Sharpie. One finger is draped in thin black cloth and becomes the nose:

Week 41: Black + White II

Pygar, the blind angel from Barbarella. Black Artline marker and white Signo pigment ink on watercolour paper, with real feathers collaged onto black card:

Week 41: Black + White III

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 38

Oil pastel giraffe wearing a bilby mask - and a bilby wearing a giraffe mask. Signage created in Word, torn edges and painted with coffee.

Week 38: Giraffe

Update:

Two-part paper finger puppet - one finger forms the neck. Outlined in black Sharpie, coloured with watercolours.

Week 38: Giraffe II

Week 38: Giraffe III

Freehand silhouette in black card collaged to a safari print gift bag. 3D eyelashes cut from white paper, with curls rolled over the end of a paintbrush. I was creating this at lunchtime today when a Facebook message came in announcing the passing of my actor friend, Elaine Lee (Vera in TV's Number 96) and I suddenly realised that my new giraffe needed to have - instead of white cartoon eyes - big white eyelashes. (Many happy memories having drinkies in Elaine's dressing room, after a stage performance, and watching her peel off her huge false eyelashes.)

Week 38: Giraffe IV

Mixed media collage with chenille sticks (poking through random holes made with a hole punch), torn paper and self-adhesive faux fur safari skin on a quill board background.

Seeing double? Spooky!

A set now complete! For those who've been following my Kooky Spooky adventure over the last year or so, here is my customized Mama Kaskit "Kooky Spooky" (far left) meeting... the real thing: a recent eBay "Buy it now" find. She arrived this morning.
To the right is a little guy I've renamed Little Formaldehyde, with customized death rattle (both concepts mooted by Patti Peticolas in her notes). He is meeting a pristine Baby Spook'em, complete with mint condition "Help" sign, thanks to the same eBay seller. (On the back, the sign reads "Boo!")
Looks like I'll have to add at least one more slide to my Photo Peach slideshow!
I was recently asked why I avoided bidding on packaged Mama Kaskits.
Toys should be free of their cardboard and plastic sarcophaguses! If I'd bought a Mama Kaskit mint-in-mint-box, I'd have had to remove her, to join her family, no matter the huge amount paid. I used to keep lots of my toys' boxes (from the 80s, 90s and 00s - we never thought to do that in 1969), but I've simply run out of room for all that packaging - and the stored boxes were getting putrid with dust in my garage under the house.
Also, many MIMB Kooky Spookys have "melt marks" where hands and noses have had 40+ years have been in contact with 1969-vintage acetate windows.

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Nostalgia news!

1969 Halloween toy advertisement in Tri City Herald, Oct 20, p85.

This daily newspaper, based in Kennewick, Washington, USA, carried a very cool Halloween promotion way back in 1969. Notice the discounted listings for several glow-in-the-dark phenomena: a Green Ghost Game for $US 6.66, Daddy Booregard representing the Kooky Spookys finger puppets at 87 cents, and Glo-Juice varnish for 77 cents a bottle! "Things for Halloween to make the night 'spooktacular'!"

I seem to recall that, in Australia, Green Ghost retailed at $12.99 at Christmas; I can almost picture the price sign at Coles in Rockdale. (I received it that year as a birthday present.) I think the Kooky Spookys retailed here for $1.69 each. I just checked and the US exchange rate was 0.90008 in 1969. That would be about right, with freight charges added.

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Don't spook till you're spooken to

GodzillaGirl challenged me to dig out some more Fimo modeling compound and try making Shirley Shriek, an early Patti Peticolas "Kooky Spooky" design, who was morphed into the more commercial Mama Kaskit. (My housemate reckons Shirley looks a little too Ku Klux Klan.)



Bulbous-nosed General Gilghouly - note the newly-added bluebird perched on the more-suitable gun, as featured on Patti's sketches - and Shirley Shriek, with her skull necklace, using a length of silver neckchain I accidentally broke a few years ago. Waste not, want not.


Early Shirley Shriek sketch by Patti Peticolas, 1968.


Custom Kooky Spookys by Ian McLean.

Greeting Geisha Ghost

I finally found a tiny sketch of the Kooky Spooky design known as Geisha Ghost, who eventually evolved into Grandma Macreak. Since I still had an unbaked batch of the lemon/nightglow Fimo modelling compound, I figured I still had one more custom left in me.


Early "Kooky Spooky" designs (Geisha Ghost: middle of top row).

Created by Patti Peticolas (1968) for Hasbro. Baby Boo (became Baby Spook'em), Shirley Shriek with pendant (evolved into Mama Kaskit), Geisha Ghost with fans (evolved into Grandma Macreak), General Booregard with gun (eventually dropped), Gaston Ghost with foil and shield (became Daddy Cadava, then dropped), Teena Terror. Note: the banjo went to Vincent Van Ghost (who became Rigor Mortimer, and finally Brother Mortimer). Cousin Gilghouly evolved into Daddy Booregard.


Geisha Ghost from the back, and from the top.


A trio of customs: General Gilghouly, Geisha Ghost and Cousin Cadava


The whole gang!

Welcome to the family!

This morning, I tracked down my several-hairs brush and some suitable highlighting paint - and finished off my two "mash-up" Kooky Spookys, based on unused Patti Peticolas designs from 1968.


Cousin Cadava & General Gilghouly.

Cousin Cadava's fencing foil is made out of a barbeque skewer, painted with chrome nail polish. I've also used that silver on his "hero" medal. His moustache is said to be reminiscent of David Niven's. The General's nose was described as being red and bulbous, like WC Fields'. His (temporary) gun is actually an uzi, borrowed from an "Austin Powers" fembot. (The original "General Booregard" design had a bluebird perched on the gun, so I guess I need to find my blue Fimo.)



With a little spare bit of the yellow/glow mixture of Fimo, I also made a little skull on a stick (above) to create a "death rattle" for signless Baby Spook'em. (When I saw a reference on the original "Baby Boo" model sheet, I just had to create one! Also love the skeletal rocking horse, which Patti seems to have crossed out as too gross for little kids? Eventually, I'll make that, too.)

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Customising Kooky Spookys!

General Gilghouly & Cousin Cadava

I'm halfway finished!

Based on two actual, unused, early designs of Patti Peticolas' "Kooky Spookys" (1968), I created these two new ghosts today by combining equal parts "lemon" and "nightglow luminescent" Staedtler brand Fimo Soft modelling compounds - and baking them in the oven for 30 minutes each.

Next I have to add painted facial features, again working from the original designs. Gilghouly (who originally name-swapped with Daddy Booregard, and was also described as a cousin) will carry a shotgun(!), and the one I'm calling Cousin Cadava (originally Gaston Ghost and then Daddy Cadava on paper) already has a "Hero" medal pinned to his chest and will hold a fencing foil. These two designs (of eight) were dropped when Hasbro committed to producing the family of six final Kooky Spookys (below).


Kooky Spooky (1968) retailers ad.

With thanks to the gang at the Universal Monster Army BBS.

UPDATE: The completed customs are HERE, HERE and HERE!

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Late for dinner!

Despite the enormous watch and chain he wears around his neck, the Hasbro "Kooky Spooky" patriarch, Daddy Booregard, tries to explain to Grandma Macreak just why he's 40 years late for dinner. And he's brought a freeloading ring-in, Gilroy from Avon, with him.

The Kooky Spookys are glow-in-the-dark finger puppet toys, designed in 1968. As a kid, I really, really thought I was getting a Daddy Booregard for Easter 1970, after my brothers and I scored Kooky Spookys for Christmas 1969. (But thanks eBay! Daddy and Gilroy both arrived today, from different locales in the USA. Gilroy contains 1977-vintage "Care Deeply" lip balm.) Everyone still glows in the dark like the year they were made!


Grandma Macreak, Daddy Booregard, Brother Mortimer, Baby Spook'em.

Still missing in action: Mama Kaskit and Teena Terror.

Captain's Log: Supplemental. Okay, I always assumed that Daddy Booregard's unique look was supposed to suggest "Father Time", but in recent times we've had rap artist, Flavor Flav!


Flavor Flav

Yes, Daddy Booregard was trendsetting Flav's look way back in 1968. In one early design, Patti Peticolas had Daddy wearing a pocketwatch-sized timepiece around his neck, then she jumps to the huge clock design. I had no idea about Flav until we had a nerdy young guy turn up on a season of "Australian Idol", a few years ago, emulating the look. So bizarre.


Spooky Papa: Japanese packaging of the "Glowing Phantom Spookies"

My PhotoPeach slideshow about Kooky Spookys is HERE!

Mr Squiggle (not) on "Collectors"

This week on the TV show "Collectors", iconic Australian children’s character, Mr Squiggle, makes an appearance with his maker, Norman Hetherington.

"Hetherington talks about Mr. Squiggle, who went to air in 1959 for a trial season of six weeks only and lasted six decades for the ABC. The cartoonist and self-taught puppet-maker also shares Blackboard and many of his 400 puppets.

It airs 8pm Friday on ABC1."

Mr. Squiggle on Collectors!


Be there or be upside down. Hurry up!

More information on Australia's first astronaut here!

Mmmmm. Check out the Comments section for the update.

Purple and gold in 1975

Okay, so I was searching through my old photograph albums and this Polaroid fell out from its position on a page marked "At home - 1975".



It's the bedroom of my teenage years, when we lived in Highclere Avenue, Rockdale. Thankfully, you can't see the purple chenille bedspread or the gold net nylon continuous curtains. But you can see: my then-newly-purchased b/w portable television set (for watching "Number 96" and all-night Saturday movies); flocked creature from the Sydney Royal Easter Show; a souvenir temperature gauge from Canberra; Mickey Mouse poster (also featuring much purple and gold); a little flocked purple cow; a larger flocked gold bull money box; matching flocked purple bull money box; and (barely visible at the bottom) a glow-in-the-dark Kooky Spooky finger puppet from Christmas 1969. Her name was Grandma Macreak! (Grandma is still with me, and worth a small fortune on eBay, I understand.)


"Grandma Macreak"


Kooky Spooky (1968) retailers ad

With thanks to the gang at the Universal Monster Army BBS.