Didn’t I say I’d find the Three Billy Goats Gruff sketches somewhere unlikely? … I was wrong. They were on the floor, under a pile of papers and sketch books.

Here’s the page of goat sketches done when I briefly considered making puppets of the 3 Billy Goats Gruff for Clive Hicks-Jenkins’s Puppet Challenge. I liked the idea of using crumpled paper to twist into the horn shapes of these fellows. But first I had to remind myself of what makes a goat look like a goat. I didn’t spend very long at it. Just long enough to get to first base. Here’s first base.

A page of goats drawn in the car at soccer training. The middle-bottom one looks more like a Labradoodle I think.

Loose squiggles. Trying to get the ‘essential’ goat.

Thinking about how nicely the horns would twist in damp brown paper…

Thinking about how I would differentiate between Big, Middle and Littlest Billy Goats Gruff. Horns, eye position, nose length, beard. No 3. should have a very long beard, but as you can see in the top picture, he has been thwarted by the edge of the page.

And of course a troll sketch to go with them. Only one.

If you like Billy Goats and graphic novels, you might like to visit Lucinda Gifford’s blog to see her great take on these characters.