MONSTER ANATOMY
An illustrated monster hunter's guide to creatures of mythology, folklore and fantasy.
Monster Anatomy published on 22nd October 2026. It's a highly illustrated book full of creepy stories and interesting facts for the 9-12 age range, or anyone who loves mythology, fantastical and spooky monsters, and bestiaries. Featuring 35 different monsters from around the world!
Written by Matt Ralphs, illustrated by myself, and published by Big Picture Press (an imprint of Bonnier Books).
All the illustrations in the book were made using a hybrid traditional and digital approach.
Each monster portrait was created in black and white using charcoal and black coloured pencil on paper, then scanned and coloured digitally in Procreate. The anatomical spots and vignettes were created with graphite pencil and brown inks on paper.
I also provided plenty of ink textures for the page backgrounds and hand-drawn arrows to help give the book an old field-guide feel to it.
Rough stage: two different designs for Jorogumo. I developed some design ideas in my sketchbook first, then took them over to my iPad to play around with placement. We ended up going with the version on the right.
A GLIMPSE OF THE PROCESS
Final artwork stage: on the left is my finished pencil drawing created traditionally, on the right is the finished artwork with digital colour.
Printed page: here is the artwork with the final text and design elements.
A PEAK INSIDE THE BOOK
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