Halloween Drawing Ideas for Kids: 24 Prompts From Cute to Creepy

Halloween is the one time of year kids get to draw the things that scare them, and most of them jump at it. A four-year-old draws a ghost with a huge smile. A seven-year-old draws a haunted house with forty windows and a bat in every one. A ten-year-old draws something you'd rather not look at before bed.

All of those count. What helps is a prompt that matches how spooky your kid actually wants to go. Below are 24 ideas sorted from cute to creepy, a few tips for drawings that come out well when you animate them, and what to do with the pile once October is over.

Cute: for little ones and anyone who likes friendly monsters

• A pumpkin with a face that shows how it feels. Happy, sleepy, grumpy, surprised. Draw three and line them up on a fence.
• A ghost who is scared of people. What is it hiding behind?
• Your pet in a costume. The dog as a dragon, the cat as a witch, the goldfish as a pirate.
• A monster at its own birthday party. What's on the cake?
• A bat who can't fly yet. Its first try, from the roof.
• Yourself in the costume you want this year. Or the costume you'd wear if anything were possible.

Cozy: Halloween night, not Halloween fright

• Your street on Halloween night. Which houses have the best decorations?
• A trick-or-treat bag that's full to the top. Draw every piece of candy you hope is in it.
• A friendly witch's kitchen. What's bubbling in the pot?
• A pumpkin patch under a full moon. One pumpkin is much bigger than the rest. Why?
• A black cat on a windowsill. What is it watching outside?
• A scarecrow who comes alive at night. Where does it go?

Eerie: a little strange, a little mysterious

• A haunted house. Give it more rooms than a house should have.
• A graveyard where the skeletons are having a dance party.
• A door in the forest that wasn't there yesterday.
• A spider who knits. What's it making with its web?
• A toy that moves when nobody is looking.
• A lighthouse with a ghost keeping the light on.

Creepy: for older kids who want to be properly spooked

• The monster under the bed, finally seen. Be specific. How many eyes?
• A creature that lives in the fog. All you can see is its shape.
• A forest where the trees have faces.
• The last house on a dark road. One window is lit.
• A vampire's castle at midnight.
• A brand-new monster nobody has ever heard of. Give it a name and one rule, like "it can only move when the lights flicker."

If your kid gets stuck, ask a question instead of offering an idea. "What's the scariest thing that could live in our attic?" usually works better than "Why don't you draw a ghost?" Our list of 25 everyday drawing prompts has more ways to get past a blank page.

How to draw a Halloween picture that animates well

If you plan to animate the drawing afterwards, a few habits make a big difference. None of them are rules about skill. A wobbly ghost animates just as well as a neat one.

• One main character, drawn big. The animation follows the character. A tiny ghost in the corner of a huge page gives the motion very little to work with.
• Strong outlines. Go over the final lines in marker or a dark crayon. Faint pencil is the most common reason a character comes out blurred.
• Leave some empty space. Halloween styles paint the background as a night scene, with moons, fog and pumpkins. Room around the character gives that scene somewhere to go.
• Faces help. Two eyes and a mouth tell the model where the character is looking, which is what makes it feel alive.
• Take the photo in daylight. Flat on a table, phone held straight above it, no shadow from your hand. Our guide to photographing a drawing covers the rest in two minutes.

Turning the drawing into a Halloween animation

Until October 31, Animy has four Halloween styles alongside the usual ones. They run along the same cute-to-creepy scale as the prompts above. Monster Me turns animals and objects into fuzzy, friendly monsters and puts people in a hooded monster costume. Spooky keeps the character's shape, colors and expression and sets it in a cozy moonlit night of jack-o'-lanterns and smiling ghosts. Creepy Clay rebuilds the scene as gothic stop-motion. Scary is a dark, foggy, live-action look, and it's labelled "not for little ones" for a reason.

Snap a photo of the drawing, pick a style, and the animation is ready in about a minute. The original drawing is saved in your gallery next to it. If you're not sure which style fits your kid, we wrote a side-by-side guide to the four Halloween styles showing the same drawing in each one.

A tip from watching families use it: let your kid pick the style. Some little ones are delighted to see their own ghost turned properly scary. Others want it cozy. It's their monster, so it's their call.

After October 31

Halloween drawings are worth keeping, because they show what a child found frightening at four and at nine, and those two things are very different. Date the back of the paper, keep the best one or two, and photograph the rest. Our guide to preserving kids' artwork has a simple system for doing that without drowning in paper.