Alphabeasts: V is for Vermicious Knids

This week's "Alphabeasts" come from Roald Dahl's lesser-known sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the book that answers the question of where that magic elevator winds up after it leaves Willy Wonka's Factory. In Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, as you may already know, Charlie Bucket and Willie Wonka make it into space, to a vast orbiting American hotel, where the are menaced by alien invaders.

Yes, my friends, V is for vermicious knids.



The vermicious knids are amorphous hostile entities from the planet Vermes, entirely comfortable in deep space but prone to burning up on atmospheric re-entry. They can assume any shape they care to. Here's an illustration from the original book, to give you a sense of the shapes they try on, and to explain why I eschewed my usual brushpen-plus-Photoshop methods for the week.



They're fun to draw. There's no wrong shape for a vermicious knid, and you can keep putting crosshatching on them until they take on the dimensionality that you want. Give them a try the next time someone puts you on hold!

Here's a little process doodle that I used to figure out whether the cross-hatching method was going to work:


Next week, I am planning a trip to a children's book that's quite a bit better known.