Skulk

Design process for skulk
inspiration
final turnaround

Skulk is the antagonist of my short - a trollhating human who infiltrated the troll world in order to hunt and kill them. I wanted him to be tall and lanky, to contrast Beram's design. I also wanted him to be mysterious and represent an ominous force more than an evil human, as something you can't relate to is scarier. I then found concept art of  the Elder Yeti from Missing Link, as well as Prowler from Into the Spiderverse as both these characters created the right effect.

I noticed that a long garment/cape highlighted the character's lankiness, as well as helped make them more mysterious as they could hid behind it and dissappear.

Using these as references I started sketching Skulk:

I found that the first set of drawings didn't portray Skulk's menace enough - he looked like a side character of protagonist instead. Working out the neck and headshape was also quite hard, and I also found that a typical crown wasn't helping make Skulk look like a villain.

The breakthrough came when I decided to change the "crown" into a troll's skull, as this gave Skulk more detail as a character, and made him look more menacing and mysterious. This also meant that just his mouth was showing, therefore a smile contrasted with his other features to make it look evil rather than friendly. I also decided to keep all his limbs inside his cloak, further adding to his mysteriousness. 

Once I had his design settled, I cleaned it up and drew his turnaround:

As Skulk is meant to seem more like an evil force, I wanted to keep his screentime to a minimum, therefore I only needed to do a side and front view. I wanted the colours to be a lot more muted and darker than either Beram or Daisy, which would make the gold of the "crown" pop more. I also wanted his face to have quite harsh shadows to draw attention to it.

What went well?:

• The exploration of the character was quite detailed
• The troll skull crown idea, as it gave Skulk a lot more depth and showed his sadistic nature
• I feel like I achieved my goals for this character
• The simple jaw and mouth of the character 

What could be improved?:

• I could have explored the cloak design more, as the way it drapes along the ground isn't the most appealing design
• I could have designed Skulk's limbs and torso despite them not being seen, as it would allow me to understand the character's anatomy more as well as could be used in the future
• The contrast of the colours could be increased, as he looks a little bit washed out
• The gold of the skull could be chipped and worn, to show the paint job and explain why the skull is gold
• I could have done more views for the turnaround, for future reference/shorts using this world