I threw in a few weird non-tigerish details like a strange nose and tail because he's a dream tiger- some of the details should be just a little bit off. It's no great drawing, but looking at it, I think it is something that would have scared me as a kid. What do you think? 
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Nightmare Tiger
My daughter woke up the other day, having had a nightmare where a tiger was chasing her. On the surface, a tiger would appear to be a sufficient adversary to scare anyone, and more so to a 6 year old. But I started thinking back to the last thing my daughter developed a fear of: Horace Horsecollar. That's right, that lovable bit player from old Mickey Mouse Cartoons and Comics, Horace Horsecollar. I had shown my daughter the cartoon The Symphony Hour and at one point good ol' Horace gets frustrated with the mangled musical instrument he's supposed to play. His angry face stuck in her head the rest of the night, almost keeping her awake. It got me thinking about what makes something scary to a child. I remembered instances where I revisited something from my childhood that had scared me, only to find that I viewed it differently as an adult. I think to an adult, a tiger would be scary because of it's power- the bulk and sheer strength of it's form, tense muscles- adults will see subtle clues to this and the mind immediately anticipates attack and danger. Judging by my daughter's reaction to Horace, I think she was scared of his angry eyes and bared teeth. So I thought I'd draw a Nightmare Tiger, with scary eyes and teeth, but on a body that was fairly silly looking otherwise. 
I threw in a few weird non-tigerish details like a strange nose and tail because he's a dream tiger- some of the details should be just a little bit off. It's no great drawing, but looking at it, I think it is something that would have scared me as a kid. What do you think?
I threw in a few weird non-tigerish details like a strange nose and tail because he's a dream tiger- some of the details should be just a little bit off. It's no great drawing, but looking at it, I think it is something that would have scared me as a kid. What do you think? 
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there was a show we watched in elementary school that had two talking houses and some talking shoes...in the show there was this thing that looked like a hairy house slipper with ping-pong eyes...it didn't talk but made this weird rough stuttering sound...when I was around 20 I had a dream where I was talking to my mom and dad and suddenly this thing popped up on my dad's shoulder...he acted like he didn't know it was there even though it was slightly bouncing and making that noise...it proceeded to kill them both...
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