These were the first two Harry Potter games released by Mattel in 2000. I helped design and illustrate them working with Ninnett Wood, Tyler Kenney and the team at Mattel, and with Maureen McHale, Martha Catlin and all the creative people at McHale Design. The cards are shown below and are quite possibly the first depictions of Hogwarts, all the spells and classrooms, Ron, Hermione, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, McGonagall, Dumbledore and Hagrid. All art was run by and approved by J.K.Rowling. The art of Malfoy and Crabbe were not approved in time for the initial printing and were replaced by silhouettes. They were included in later printings.
Mckelvey Illustration
Twenty Years of Harry Potter Artwork
Twenty years ago I got a call to help design and create illustrations for the very first Harry Potter board games for Mattel Toys. It was quite the challenge as the only pieces of character artwork that existed in 1999 were the two drawings of Harry Potter for the covers of the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the US). The first of the movies was still more than a year from being released. In creating those first two games, and the others yet to come I had no other visual reference, and everything I painted was created entirely from the vivid descriptions of J.K. Rowling. I was quite likely the first artist to create likenesses of Hermoine, Ron, Malfoy, Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and all the other characters, locations and spells from the world of Harry Potter, and all artwork was run by and approved by J.K.Rowling. The first two games were Mystery at Hogwarts and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Trivia Game which were released in 2000, followed by Halls of Hogwarts, Hogwarts Dueling Game, Diagon Alley Board Game, Quidditch Card Game, and the 3D castle game Adventures Through Hogwarts.
