Summary and Synthesis

I have designed ten favourite villainous characters from children’s books from fairytales to books brought out in the past ten years. I made them into a mix and match book as well as proposing an app version. Both would have information about the characters and would encourage children to get into reading.  The synthesis of this and my dissertation is that I have been researching the role of good and evil and about how important it is for children to read, in particular to read without being shielded from the darker side of reality. This is why I focused on villains and how to represent them. My aims were to fully explore how to create a villain and how I could take well known characters and draw them in a new way, without any influence from tv or film adaptations like Disney. I was avoiding adaptations because ones as famous as Disney almost rewrite characters to be theirs and lose some of the book quality. Also because it is children’s books I have been researching not films. My intention was to understand better and learn what techniques I could use for making my own villainous character in the future. I also had the intention of it being finished a mix and match book but I focused my time on the written side and didn’t have enough time or good enough management to do that effectively. If I were to this again I think my main focus would have been character investigation. I also think I spent too much time in the research stage.

Finals

A selection to show my focus

These Show that for me the most important part of the practical was to create characters that were true to who they are in the books.

Presentation boards

Where I could take it

If I was to take this further (and fixed it to make it work) I'd see it in a library or school as something that would have information about the characters accompanying it to encourage kids to get interested in books through something fun. In that case I'd also make a hero version and an animal one as I had an animal in mind for all of the villains. I'd also like for it to make a digital version that you'd be able to play with and learn about the characters as you made the combination. It would say the strengths and weaknesses of each character and would encourage you to build the strongest villain or hero. 

Reference of all kinds for all my characters

Follow Rosie's board villains on Pinterest. It needs opening as it only shows a small selection on the widget but when you have you'll see that I found pinterest incredibly useful for keeping all of my reference in one place. In this I looked for how other creatives took on the characters, original illustrations, fashion's of the time, crown's, wolves and I imagine there's some other useful things on there too I used it a lot.

Final book

Even though it doesn't really have a finished quality that a front and back cover would give it, I'm still happy that I bound and cut it as it really quite fun and it's nice to do something interactive with my characters.

This is a combination that really shows how I should have planned the characters to the format better rather than really wanting to capture them. Also you might be able to see in this photo, the last two pages in the book are alms impossible to add to a combination as the binding ring stops them from moving properly.  I don't know if this is because it was done on a machine but I also don't know how to fix it. If I had more time I'd work on it longer but I spent most of my time on my dissertation as I knew I'd find it difficult. 

This is a combination that shows what it could have been as it works really well. If I had planned everything out accordingly the whole book could have been like this but I don't think it would have represented the characters very well as there is such a divide between their body shapes and what they wear. I couldn't have drawn a skinny Trunchbull. 

What my book should have been and Character investigation

These are some images of the type of book I had been planning on making, I had these downloaded for a while as reference but I didn't put enough planning in to really examine how they all synch up together. I knew that I'd fall down with the written portion and that I can draw characters so I left it to the back of my head. Without me really noticing this project became way more about investigating the nature of a villainous character in children's books and how to draw them. On that note I've learned a lot that I'll be able to use in the future, particularly as I've never really drawn any villains before but on the making of a product I've done pretty terribly. I didn't fully plan how it would work and I didn't plan covers for the book at the start and then ran out of time to do anything more than the characters that had taken up my attention. I should have done it as a character investigation from the start and found a different setting for them but When the practical project I was working on in the summer was made redundant, I was grasping at straws for something that I could draw. So when Teresa suggested an exquisite corpse I just jumped on that instead of really analysing what I would have time and would enjoy doing.

Binding and Slicing

When I went to get my dissertation bound at Leeds Uni I saw that they had a machine to spiral bound which was a big relief to me as I had been paling to do it by hand, which I was quite certain I'd don wrong but with my dissertation to finish I didn't have much time to really think or plan it out very much. However as it used a machine I couldn't really have them cut before it went through. So I got the right measurements on two pieces of paper either side of the book and used a scalpel to slice them into the correct portions. It was here that I was really glad I did print and bind two copies and I managed to slice three of the pages into diagonals. All of this ended up being relatively simple but when I could actually move it about I saw the drastic difference between a combination that lines up correctly and one that doesn't. Up to this point I'd been so focused on the writhed work that I only really thought about how Trunchbull's big neck would look funny on a skinny body but not about how it would line up. This is probably my biggest failure of this project.

Formatting

In order to make sure all of my characters are to the right format I put them into the same document to line them up to the same shape.

It was here that I realised I'd gone wrong somewhere as they didn't quite fit the format that I'd been working to for a while. So I spent a while moving the lines about until they could all line up together. 

Count Olaf

Count Olaf as summarised on http://snicket.wikia.com/wiki/Count_Olaf#Physical_Appearance

Olaf is described as tall, thin, unkempt and often dirty. Olaf's poor hygiene is frequent and Olaf mentions that he often goes ten days without a shower. His lack of personal hygiene worsens although Sunny Baudelaire is shocked to see that Olaf has bathed and changed into a new suit.

His other distinguishing features include shiny eyes that frighten the Baudelaires, pale skin, a unibrow, and a tattoo of an eye on his ankle which is a mark for members of VFD, the organization to which Olaf belonged before becoming what he describes as "an individual practitioner." He is depicted with white, receding hair, a goatee beard and a hooked, prominent nose. 

I didn't really need to do that much development on Olaf before I had a decent idea of what I was doing. I looked up a lot of how he looks in the original illustrations and as I read somewhere else that A Series of Unfortunate Events is set in a timeless place that is both victorian and the 1930's, I looked up suits of the 1930's to see how I should draw it. I kept the suit high on the ankles as it makes it look both too small on the leg and too big on the jacket, it also allows you to see his distinctive tattoo. I wanted to make him recognisable but not copy the illustrations so I took into account how he is shown in them and used a similar way of drawing the  eyebrow. I also drew a receding hit but not quite so exaggerated. I added his little moustache as I felt it was appropriate and it made it seem more like he was once looking after himself but doesn't anymore. My main inspiration for him was a cross between an alcoholic supply teacher and a well to do but down on his luck 1930's gambling man. 

I did his hair in grey but with paler lines to try and give the impression that he's getting greyer. I also spent a while making him look sickly, I chose his skin colour to be pale and a little bit towards the yellow/green. I also chose to do the bags under his eye a bruised kind of colour to really in force that he doesn't look after himself. 

Big Bad Wolf

Once again I had a character with very little description so I spent a long time looking at older illustrations and wolves to get a stronger idea. I took the BBW from Little Red Riding Hood rather than from some of the other stories as I thought it was the most familiar  and easily recognisable. Which meant that I also spent a while looking at 17th and 18th century nightgowns for him to be dressed in. I chose to do a plainer one as opposed to some of the more beautiful patterned ones as I doubted that the grandmother in the woods would afford the fancier options. I also chose to omit the spectacles as all the reference to grandmothers clothes I could find in the story only mentioned the cap and gown. I started drawing his face and legs particularly drawn out as it gives a more villainous impression. especially in relation to the big rounded gown that is so clearly foreign to him. 

 I enjoyed adding the prop of a shredded red cloth and him licking his lips. It might not be immediately obvious but this just after he's eaten LRRH.  I also chose to colour the bow in the same colour as I thought it makes them stand out without looking too separate from the rest of the image and that within the story it was most likely that her grandmother made the cloak so it would make sense for her to use the same red. I drew the bow to be ever so slightly tied wrong as I liked the idea of the wolf having trouble with it. 

The eyes are what I had the most trouble with as I wanted them to seem wolf like but the angle is ever so slightly wrong and they don't quite match. I think I'd have to spend a long time working on them to get them right but I got to  a point that I was happy enough to move on and I don't have time to make large amendments now. 

Grinch

As the grinch is from an illustrated book there is quite literally no description of his physical appearance. However this also meant that no where in the book does it say that he's green, in fact that was a decision made for the film adaptation. As I've been avoiding film adaptations and wanting to do something to make it my own I chose not to colour him green. This allowed me to draw the grinch in a new but familiar way. As he lives up in the cliffs and is depicted as white in the original illustrations it wasn't that much of a leap to draw him blue/white, like a yeti or another furry snow creature. I wanted him to be recognisable but to still have my own additions, one of these was the stripes but i did have some trouble with getting them how I wanted and I'm still not happy with them but I proffered what I did get to the just one colour ones that I also tried out. I like the contrast between the red of the hat and bow and the overall blue that I decided to use for most of this drawing. I think it helps to show that christmas isn't something that comes naturally to the Grinch. This background is one of the least villainous which could be improved but I do think it works well for the cold of winter and I think that it's my best one yet as you can see the texture and it's not too dark so it doesn't overwhelm the image.

Hook

Hook's summary as shown on In the novel Peter and Wendy, Hook is described as "cadaverous" and "blackavized" (dark-faced), with blue eyes and long dark curls which look like "black candles" at a distance. In most pantomime performances of Peter Pan, and in the film Hook, Hook's hair is simply a wig. He is also described as having a "handsome countenance" and an "elegance of [...] diction" – "even when he [is] swearing". The novel further states that "In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II", and accordingly he is usually presented wearing a large feathered hat, a greatcoat (often red), and knee breeches. Barrie also said of him in "Captain Hook at Eton" as, "In a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting". While Hook is an evil and bloodthirsty man, Barrie makes it clear that these qualities make him a magnificent pirate and "not wholly unheroic". I took a lot of his reference from Charles II but I also looked into depictions of pirates from the time that the book was published. This is where I found what I should draw him wearing and like some of my other illustrations I selected a few pieces from different reference images. I chose not to draw the feather hat as I felt that it's too closely associated with the Disney adaptation. I think I managed to draw him to be handsome and tanned but I'm not sure that I managed to get his disgusting traits across. I think if I had more time I would spend a while working on the balance of handsome and disgusting. I do think that my coloured lines have been improving and that I've had to think more about poses than ever before.

The Queen of hearts

The Queen of hearts has no real physical description except to say that she is a card like the gardeners. From this I vaguely tried to draw her more oblong but I couldn't really go that far with it as it wouldn't have fit the format. Instead I did some research about the fashion of the times (1865)  with royals. It seemed to mainly be about detailing so I only did a little bit of sketching before moving onto the one I could really add onto. I also tried to get across her personality as it's so well known. I spent a while looking at how to draw her face and lips.

I chose to draw lots of extra line and pattern into this one as she's meant to be off a playing card and that seems to be some of the design  traits on them. I also thought that while adding detail I should enforce the hearts. I think I ,managed to get her personality through with her expression and posture.

I tried to her as a similar colour scheme to the playing  cards that mainly use yellow, red and blue. I think that perhaps that I should have done the background in blue as well to tie it all together but I do like the affect of the yellow background. I also think this is a great one for the coloured lines as they all stand out but aren't separate like they were in black. This extra lines really add to this.

Cruella

The wikipedia description bits of use "In the original story, Cruella is a depicted as a pampered and glamorous London heiress who knows the owner of the Dalmatian puppies from school, though it is mentioned that they were not friends and that she frightened the young Mrs. Dearly. She was a menacing student with black and white plaits, and was expelled for drinking ink." and " She is married to a furrier, who is not named in the book, and they have no children. Cruella is portrayed as the tyrannical figure in the marriage, and her husband as a meek, subservient man who seldom speaks and obeys his wife entirely. He supplies Cruella with extravagances, such as the white mink cloak she often wears with skin-tight satin gowns and ropes of jewels in contrasting colours, such as a black dress with ropes of pearls, or a green dress with ropes of rubies." Cruella was actually one of the most fun characters as not only had already been drawing bits that would suit her, I was also interested to find out that she's not out and out evil she's just the rich brat type that's always had money and gets what they want. From this I researched fashion from the time the book was published (1956). I really enjoyed finding the right look for her that also fit with the time and I think I did it well. I do think the face could do with some work still but it does look like it comes from money. I chose to keep the cloak short and as a fashion piece to have her further away from the Disney version and from the white witch, who also wears white fur.This is another one where I spent a while looking at how the eye and eyebrow shape changes the effect. I spent a while working on the face shading for cruella, the larger shadow over her face that highlights the cheekbones turn her from just being fashionable to being uncaring. I think I could have done better with the colour as the background is so dark and she is only wearing black and white, so she doesn't stand out that well. but I do like the way that her outfit has the running theme.

Voldemort

I chose to do goblet of fire voldemort as before that he was basically formless and that wouldn't suit the format. Here he's summarised on "He is tall, and skeletally thin. His face is an almost opaque texture, with deep, dark scarlet eyes set in slits, like a cat's gleaming in the dark. His nose is as flat as a snake's, leaving small incisions for nostrils, and his fingers are unnaturally long, like a spider's legs. He can usually be seen wearing his black hooded cloak that always covers his face." This was the first character I drew since Christmas and you can tell. It takes a while for me to get to what I'm trying to do but then I think I would have found his skeleton face quite hard anyway, especially as he's supposed to be wearing his hooded cloak. The cloak is also an issue as it really ruins the thin aspect. After looking at cloaks for a while, it became clear that if his elbows were up (which they had to be to stay in the section) then his cloak would have to go down from them, turning it into a weird tent dress. I would have said this one was terrible but Nagini really helps to make it more visually interesting and gives him something to do with his hands. It also made me think of how it'd be good to do an animal for all of them but I don't really have time. The lines in this one are really defined to add to his skeleton face and general pallor. Also this is by far my favourite for background texture the way it sort of spirals in with the dark reds against Nagini's green makes everything seem more villainous.

Mrs Coulter

There is very little physical description in his dark materials, with it focusing more on the less visible traits. However she is summarised here on http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Marisa_Coulter#Description

Mrs. Coulter is described as being 35 years old, slim, ‘beautiful and young’ with ‘sleek black hair’ which ‘framed her cheeks.’Mrs. Coulter is a published academic and scientist, written as sophisticated, elegant, intelligent and wealthy while she possesses an appetite for cruelty. Despite her feeling that Lyra is too much like Asriel, both Mrs. Coulter and Lyra are shown to be impassioned and talented liars. Her dæmon has taken the form of a golden monkey.

I tried to emphasise her being the sophisticated older (than lyra) woman that Lyra would be so impressed with. as even though she can be horribly cruel and self serving, at the start of the books Lyra finds her to be exciting and beautiful in that way that only someone older that's nice to you can be. I tried to draw her to be beautiful and not immediately frightening but also like that could slip away if it wasn't convenient. The long sleek dress was part of this as it would be very glamorous but not your traditional mother outfit and the pink/peach background colour is supposed to feed into the idea that she isn't there to harm you. I drew her daemon as well as in the books it hurts to be far away from it and it helps to identify her.  I think I am improving with both the lines and the background. These lines are more defined and stand out better for it, while the background does the opposite so it's not distracting too much away from the illustration.

Miss Trunchbull

Description as summarised on https://readingprocess.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/description-of-miss-trunchbull-in-appearance/

She was above all a most formidable female. She had once been a famous athlete, and even now the muscles were still clearly in evidence. you could see them in the bull-neck, in the big shoulders, in the think arms, in the sinewy wrists and in the powerful legs. looking at her, you got the feeling that this was someone who would bend iron bars and tear telephone directories in half. Her face, I’m afraid, was neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for ever. She had an obstinate chin, a cruel mouth and small arrogant eyes. And for her clothes…they were, to say the least, extremely odd. she always had on a brown cotton smock which was pinched in around the waist with a wider leather belt. The belt was fastened in front with an enormous silver buckle. The massive thighs which emerged from out of the smock were encased in a pair of extra-ordinary breeches, bottle-green in colour and made of coarse twill. These breeches reached to just below the knees and from there on down she sported green stockings with turn-up tops, which displayed her calf muscles to perfection. on her feet she wore flat-heeled brown brogues with leather flaps. she looked, in short, more like a rather eccentric and bloodthirst follower of the stag-hounds than the headmistress of a nice school for children.

I didn't really talk about it on my last Trunchbull post but I tried to follow the description a lot with this one as it has such as specific one. The small arrogant eyes worked best to this but it was also nice to be able to give her the clothes as depicted in the book not the film that I grew up, it helped to separate them.  I did add some extra hair around the mouth and legs as I feel it's fitting to the character and to her age. I'm still not certain if the background is working but I quite enjoyed matching the colour to outfit and the rough texture matches her. The coloured lines are also a bit hit and miss still but I think it's getting better.

White Witch

As the white witch isn't human (she's half giant half genie) I wanted to make her look a little otherworldly, This is the description taken from The chronicles of Narnia wiki: http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Jadis#Physical_appearance The Witch was a seven foot tall, strikingly beautiful and Amazonian woman, with a look of such fierceness and cold, stern pride that it took your breath away. She was depicted with long black hair and very red lips, and had an excellent sense of style, as she always dressed in an extravagant manner that showed off her power and status. In The Magician's Nephew she was depicted in long, flowing Romanesque robes, while in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe she wore white furs that covered her up to her throat. She also always wore a gold crown. She had white skin, though presumably it originally had a more golden hue colour (as seen in the illustrations by Pauline Baynes), but after eating the apple from the tree of life in The Magician's Nephew, her skin turned as white as salt, and remained so in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The description I used was taken from as many sources as I could find to ensure it was right but this one shows the traits I tried to show in her appearance. I found a skull based crown on pinterest while looking for possible reference but modified it to suit her better. I thought the skull was particularly good for portraying her as a villain and shows how cold she is, especially with the spikes. The dress was also from a pinterest image that I thought with different colours would work well as an ice/snow themed extravagant dress. I think it worked well but I wish I could have made the detailing on her dress a shining silver instead of a pale grey. After learning how to foil at Hallmark I Think that would have been how I would have done it for a proper book. However that would mean finding something to foil in every drawing for consistency, maybe it would have worked for a front cover. Her eyes were one of my big focuses as I think it's one of the most easily recognisable as being villainous. I really wanted to elongate these ones to reinforce the alien quality, however as I've never really drawn eyes like this before it was really hard to keep them consistent. There's one eye on the first page that I think captures what I was wanting to do but I was unable to replicate it at the opposite angle and when it came to drawing it smaller, it became a lot harder. I think the eyes I finished with are decent but could still be improved. I drew her looking above and to the side the viewer as if she's bored of you and that you are beneath her. I tried to do this to get her character across. The major flaw in this drawing for me is the line work, in black you could see how severe she is but as I'm not quite used to colouring my lines yet I don't think I made them stand out enough. I do think however that colouring my lines is something I should pursue and try to get better at. This is also the first of my drawings that I tried the texture out on, it seems to work at making that blank space more interesting but it makes the background colour a lot harder to do as no matter what I do I can't seem to get a decent overall colour. This is another thing that I need more practice with.

Textures

Since playing with textures in some of my recent illustrations, I decided it would be a good way of filling up the background space. Particularly as I can't draw in any features that would get cut up to make the book. I don't think these are the best textures I could have made but they'll be good for practising with and using in this brief. I only just found out that you can use overlay to get textures, the problem is that it severly darkens the image and almost overpowers it. I'm going to try and use this as brief as a way to improve with this as well.