Evil Christmas Character

So we have been given the fun task of designing an evil Christmas character... this strangely turned out to be more difficult than I was first expecting. As you can see from my scrambled mind set of ideas.

When I'm trying to come up with idea I often do very basic sketches like these to see if things work. So as you can see evil Christmas trees, fire starter, random Robbin, demented rabbit teddy bear, then my trolls.
I got the idea of having a smart one and a dumb lackey, they would dress up like elves then try and steal presents from the grotto so I began on my silhouettes based on this idea.

|So they turned out quite well. But I realized I would need to do a lot more of them, and tat i needed to be less refined with them. Yet there I was doing the exact same with the second batch. So then I tried to work on the mood board.

When I began to look over the main themes of my idea they seemed to overlap a little bit too much with Christmas films. So I came to the decision to scrap my trolls unfortunately.

                                                      

                                            I even had a short story/ comic thought out for my duo. 

But I came up with a better idea. If you have been keeping up with my blog you should know I lived for a time in Italy. Its there where I learnt of "La Befana"  an old lady that came and gave sweets to children.It was at this point I began to be dubious of Santa at that age, as why would there be two people giving out presents? And This memory resonated in me and gave me my idea. La befana is meant to ave originated from the time of Jesuses birth so shes been around longer than Santa right. But many more children believe in Santa than in her and over the years shes become a bit bitter and twisted.

Her silhouettes were quite difficult as I didn't want to lose the old woman with a broom and sack of sweets look too much.As you can see i tried a lot of different idea and shapes with her and then began to work on my favourite 8. 

To be honest I have a personal favourite in this batch and its the second one that looks like shes carrying out the crash. I can't use her though as she doesn't have enough of a "evil" vibe. Yet I love her and why? Because after drawing her she reminded me of an old woman back from Italy, she would wander the streets with her large bags that she always looked like she was struggling to carry but if anyone ever tried to help her she would curse her head off at them. 

You may also notice in these designs that I begin to expand on the puppets. So this is where her story continues with in her bitterness she turns children who don't believe in her into puppets. Now for colours:

                                 

I was torn between using reds or oranges and browns. But since Santa is red I decided to go for orange as its stil quite a nice warm wintry colour but less overlapping with Santa.

So here is her final design. I'm quite happy with it, it doesn't have a very scary feel but I'm sure if she was creeping round your house you would be a bit scared too.

                                            

So here is the slightly scruffy story board.Reading downwards, of her entering a house, trying to find a stocking to place in some sweets but unable to find it so searched the little boys room where she finds the Santa Claus Toy. Angry that the boy believes in Santa rather than her turns him into a puppet.

So believe in her kids or she will be coming for you and turning you into a puppet...