Mr. Dark, the Illustrated Man

With the face and body finished, I moved on to making basic clothing and figuring out the pose for the character. I modeled the pants and shoes after styles from the late  1800s. 

I love adding little details, so I spent some time designing buttons. In the story there is a strong theme of time and death, with some older characters wanting to be young and young characters wanting to be grown up. Mr. Dark uses these to feelings to manipulate people and trap them into working for him. Thinking of  that, I made the buttons a bit fanciful with an hourglass motif, and I brought that shape into the shoes and buckle on the pants. 

I left the wrinkles of the pants vague, since I will be posing him soon, and moved on to building the shoes and the stool he'll be sitting on. They won't be affected much by the pose, so I went ahead and added details of carving and stitching.

The legs of the stool were my favorite part. I tried to bring in a feeling of insect legs, but make it elegant instead of completely creepy. My original plan was to have eight legs like a spider, but I did some experimenting and liked the look of four. 

Yesterday I worked on the hands, arms, face, and body. I started by sculpting the hands and attaching them.

Then I sculpted the ears and started reshaping the face. I've done a lot of research trying to figure out the look of Mr. Dark, and I came across some beautifully carved dolls. I really liked the way their faces combined minute detail with simplified planar shapes. I also took reference from the shape of snake heads, since I am trying to make him a bit uncanny and dangerous looking.

As I worked on the face I had trouble figuring out shapes that worked in three dimensions. The side view was alright, but some of the features from the front were odd proportions. I took a break from the face to work on muscle anatomy. The arms and forearms especially needed a lot of work.

After working on the arms and back, I came back to the face and finished re-sculpting it.

Today I worked on sculpting the face, then added detail to the body  (those poor stubby arms will be getting some attention tomorrow). 

Over the course of the story Mr. Dark's tattoos are described in such an interesting way. I can't wait to start experimenting with them. To show them off, his chest and arms are going to be on display, so I focused in on the torso today trying to get the muscle details.

I've been doing a lot of sketching, working on ideas for poses and facial features and designs for tattoos. I am trying to find a face that communicates his character: stylish, evil, and self satisfied. As I was putting a mood board together, I ended up on a pinterest tangent drawing cat poses. I hope I can sneak a little of their attitude into his character design.

I started with z-spheres and then began roughing out basic shapes and proportions. I am hoping to stylize his body without losing the muscle and skeleton.

Concept for Mr. Dark, the Illustrated Man (inspired by the story "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury).