Colleen Kong, a New York-based artist, is the creative force behind Kongaline.com. According to Colleen, “Children Are Beastly,” and she personifies their mischievousness through illustrated monsters. To get inspired for our first Show & Tell Call for Entries, “To Boo or Not to Boo,” we asked Colleen a few questions:
 

3 & 1/2 Questions: Colleen Kong

What influenced the way your monsters look?

My last name is “Kong-Savage.” It sounds like a giant gorilla with very bad manners. I wondered, “if a kong-savage was a character, what would it look like?” My very first savage was simple, hairy, and had an attitude:

How do you give your monster characterization/personality?

I wondered, “what would my savage do when he wasn’t throwing a fit?” I also wanted to add more detail, so I beefed up his arms (I was still thinking of gorillas) and gave him some big teeth (because he IS a monster). I couldn’t decide on a color, so I tried a whole bunch of them, and I came up with this:

And then because I still couldn’t decide on a color, I figured I’d make a whole population of these beastly monsters so that I wouldn’t have to settle on a single shade. Another advantage of having more than one beastie is that they now can have families and friends. 

There’s a whole bunch of ways I can render these characters.

I can collage myself a beastie: cut it out of paper, using different papers for different parts, then glue all the pieces together

Or if I need to make a black and white picture, I can do a line drawing with a pen.

Sometimes I want to use the computer, so I’ll draw a thick black outline with a brush pen. Then I’ll scan it into the computer and color it in using a program called Adobe Illustrator. Because it’s now on the computer, I can change colors over and over again with a click of a button.

What would you do to make a monster scarier or friendlier?

To be honest, I don’t make my monsters that scary—I mean no scarier than your mom is when she’s mad at you for drawing a mustache on your brother with permanent marker. But as you know, some facial expressions are scarier than others. Would you rather be stuck in a room with someone with friendly eyes and a smile or a furrowed brow and a frown?

And if anyone comes at you with angry red eyes and a snarling mouth full of sharp teeth, you would probably leave the house.

Please complete this sentence: I like to draw ____.

Beasties and naughty children.

We do too, Colleen! See Colleen’s monsters and more of her work at kongaline.com.

All images courtesy of Colleen Kong.