Visual Villain Study

Visual Villain Study - by Chris Sutton

Questions

• How does the antagonist's visual design affect or portray their character? Shape, color, pose, etc.
• Are there any consistent trends for villain designing? 
• Are there any holes in villain design? (eg: a lack of brutish female villains)
• How do masks affect a antagonist's affect on the audience?

Term plan (Subject to change)

Week 10 & 11= Various villains from animated kids programs,  start Drawings based on Disney study and notes.
Week 12 & 13 = Look at villains (and their henchmen) from various other animated films and video games. Start drawings based on research.
Week 14 & 15 = Compare and contrast draws from weeks 10 to 14. What works? What doesn't? Look at masked antagonists, what does the mask say about the character?
Week 16 & 17 = Finalize the best antagonist design created.

Brainstorming villains

Disney villains

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Judge Claude Frollo)
• Treasure Planet (Mr Scroop) 
• Tarzan (William Clayton)
• The Incredibles (Syndrome)
• Peter Pan (Captain Hook)
• Beauty and the Beast (Gaston)
• Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent)
• Up (Charles Muntz)

Examples of Animated films that weren't made by Disney

• Iron Giant (Kent Mansley)
• Secrets of Kells (The Vikings, The abbot)
• Coraline (The other mother)

Examples of animated TV shows

• Avatar: Legend of Korra (Amon, Unalaq, Zaheer, Kuvira
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (Azula, Ozai, Hama, Face stealer Koh)
• Power Puff girls (Mojo Jojo, HIM)
• Kim Possible (Shego, Dr Drakken)
• Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood (The homunculi)

Examples of videos games with stylized character that would be good to study:

• Dishonored
• Alice: Madness
• League of Legends
• We happy few
• Hello Neighbor
• Borderlands 2
• Starcraft and Warcraft
• Portal (Glados)
• The Legend of Zelda
• Little nightmares
• Fable (Jack of Blades)
• Psychonauts
• Bioshock (Sanders Cohen, Big daddy)
• Outlast (The Groom)

Quick Disney Villain study (More coming soon)

Gaston - Beauty and the beast

A good example of subverting expectations, Gaston is design more to look like the hero. Favoring brawn to brains, this is represented by Gaston's large physical frame, huge muscles and proportionally small skull . While Gaston looks like the stereotypical hypermasculin hero (Handsome, strong, blue eyes) there are a few subtle things about his appearance that could be argued to show his villainous role in the film. The most obvious of these is his bright red shirt (not exactly a friendly shade either). If nothing else, Gaston, along with Prince Hans from Frozen, are great examples of villains design to subvert the audience.

Up - Charles Muntz

Mr Scroop - Treasure Planet

Judge Claude Frollo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Maleficent - Sleeping Beauty

Helpful resources

-Draw with Jazza - Drawing villains - Youtube - https://youtu.be/PS18KPlogso

-Istebrak - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jDgQJJomg

Feedback received so far

- Create original works
-Should a character be designed with "Villainy" or "Evil" in mind?

Feedback from tutor

• Need more theory
• What other animation companies could be looked at?
• Compare Antagonists with Protagonists
• Update your question.

Updated question - What physical feature, traits or images cause an audience to recognize a animated character as an Antagonist or a Protagonist? How do storytellers use this to their advantage.

An example of a villain's appearance being used to subvert the audience's expectations is Prince Hans from Disney's "Frozen". Hans is deliberately designed to look like the typical Disney prince so his betrayal is shocking and unexpected.

Villains drawing

Heroes drawing (For comparison)