Many of us have beasties that make us shiver, remnants of creatures that haunted childhood dreams. For me it was werewolves. I don’t know why, I like wolves and love dogs; but if something menacing with teeth and claws was due to make a nocturnal appearance it would invariably be werewolves.

However movie lycanthropes don’t bother me at all. For all their slobbery snarliness they don’t have the key ingredient that scared the bejeezus out of me as a tiny weasel: patience. Terrible, inescapable, awful patience. The nightmare beasts never ran because they never needed to. They would merely loom in front of you, waiting for you to realise you had nowhere left to run.

So when I was asked to draw something new and scary I remembered those lupine buggers, and decided to try and capture the combined qualities of stillness and menace. No snarling, clawing, or rabid leaping; just patience. These are some of the work in progress concept sketches for the eventual wolfies. I ended up referencing all sorts of odd animals (as well as wolves) including baboons, goats, fossas (the fossa is a scary thing), Tasmanian Tigers and lots and lots of dog skulls (with and without.. substance on them).