"Soft" Villain

This guy is a total creep. This assignment was to exercise shape language.  We were instructed to design a "soft villain."  I quickly abandoned the go-to and overdone Cruella deVilles in their plush furs and went for something more akin to "pudgy." I remember Ralph Fiennes once describing his creepy Nazi character in Schindler's List as "soft-bodied."  Then I had it.  My guy would be soft-bodied, subtle and oh-so-scary.  Saggy skin, thinning hair and bright reflective coke-bottle glasses to conceal his beady eyes all combined to create the monster below.  Part of the assignment was also to assign our character a backstory which is also included below:

"This man has no name.  He is the faceless predator that haunts the nightmares of every parent. He blends easily, the eye passes over him undeterred.  Non-descript, soft-bodied, nothing ostentatiously menacing about him.  You have to be on your guard to even realize what's wrong with him loitering at a schoolyard.  His eyes are hidden behind the gleam of thick glasses.  A slight paunch hangs over his belt.  His clothes aren't flashy.  He is seen and then quickly forgotten.  A villain like him wreaks his havoc before anyone realizes what happened."

Circus Character - Ringmistress

Salem

 

Here are some very quick character roughs I did for a job that never went through.  

The card game was based on the Salem Witch Trials.

 

I had some fun really sculpting their facial features

and I may end up doing some more finished versions later on.

Wheedles

In my character design class we were given a written prompt for an old sea captain with a peg leg on his left leg below the knee who is completely bald and what little hair he does have is gray.  

He is bronzed from long voyages and has gentle blue eyes. 

At first I just played around with different styles in head studies,

 then moved on to full figure proportions.

I felt like this fella had the most potential to be an 

old salt yet still have kindness in his eyes.  

While this guy had a great coat that I really wanted to stick with.

Once I established what posture I was after I settled on making a full comp of the character, 

really playing with the balance of positive and negative space created by the twisting rope.

 Captain Wheedles is a character from one of the Oz sequels.