affinity designer The world was such a wholesome place until . . .

[penwiper]

Okay!  So I have finished drawing my first lady villain; Cruella de Vil was a LOT of fun to draw.  I loved the Disney movie as a kid and I am ashamed to say that I have not read the book, although I just picked it up to read on an online library.  That'll happen maybe later on today.  :-) 

 

"A large car was coming towards them.  .... A woman came out onto the front-door steps.  She was wearing a tight fitting emerald satin dress, several ropes of rubies, and an absolutely simple white mink cloak, which reached to the high heels of her ruby-red shoes.  She had dark skin, black eyes with a tinge of red in them, and a very pointed nose.  Her hair was parted severely down the middle and one half of it was black and the other white-- rather unusual."  101 Dalmations, Dodie Smith

 

I've taken a couple of liberties because I felt they worked better with the design; namely, the coat and the hair.  I'm still rather pleased with how this turned out, though. 

 

Also, this is a call for female villains from literature.  I'd like some more ideas; I have a few-- Shine, from Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones (plus a few others; DWJ had a THING about evil older ladies due to mother issues of her own, apparently), the Medusa, Belatrix Black or Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, and the infamous principal Agatha Trunchbull of Matilda's school by Roald Dahl, and the Winter Queen from the Dresden series too, perhaps.  Anyway, critiques welcome!  More villains to come later.

[Dave Harris]

Mrs Coulter from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials? Played by Nicole Kidman in the film. Most of the others I can think of are from Brothers Grimm: the queen from Snow White, for example, or the step-sisters from Cinderella, or the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

[MattP]

Oooh, I like what you've done with the fur and with her hair - top work! :)

 

I was actually just about to suggest to you that you should try Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter - she was certainly very wicked and her pink wardrobe and cat obsession (who can blame her?) would make a great drawing!

[GRScott]

Cool. Nice drawing.

[MEB]

Great work penwiper. Nice serie/idea you have going on :) Quite peculiar...

What about Queen of Hearts from Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie? 

[penwiper]

Here's my next villain, Doctor Fu Manchu.  I've been listening to a free audio book via "Classic Tales" podcast featuring him as a character. 

 

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man." (The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu Chap. 2)

 

Even though I loved my initial sketch, I couldn't use it because it didn't match too well with the character description.  I like my sketch better honestly, but I do think the vector turned out fairly well.  I got the brocade pattern from an online resource. 

 

It's so much easier to come up with male villains' names...

[ronniemcbride]

Love your style! And I like what you did with her stockings. great use of texture and bitmaps!

[Sunset]

I like the bold, confident shading, lovely work and great expressions :)

[penwiper]

I think honestly my computer was not having fun toward the end of this drawing.  When I'd clip things I'd have bits of the original sections version disappear but not all the way.  *sigh*.  Still, it came out fairly well all things considered. 

 

"When they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher’s desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head. Harry was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad."  Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by JK Rowling. 

 

I've never watched the movies, so my impressions are solely book based on this one.  She's got on a more "traditional" robe and hat in this image mainly because I can't see her NOT wearing a robe. Also she has a cat with her so I think this portrait must be prior to her Hogwarts DADA stint.

[MattP]

Very nice! I'd definitely recommend watching the movies - they're some of the rare type of movies that actually enhance the books, imho :)

[penwiper]

Next up . . . Captain Hook.  :-D  (By the way, Peter Pan is a great book.  I reread it last year and it definitely holds up the Test of Time.  There's a reason it's a classic.) 

 

"In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared.  He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace.  As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him.  In person he was cadaverous and blackavized [dark faced], and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance.  His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly.  In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute.  He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew.  A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour.  In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.  But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw."

 

Critiques welcome!  Thanks for your comments, guys, I appreciate them!  This is a lot of fun.  :-)  A female villain up next I suppose.  I am trying to alternate between gender . . . We'll see how far that goes.  Also I figured out a way to speed up my shading process, so go me!

[MattP]

Lovely colours - great pose and fluid curves. He almost looks a little too regal to be such a baddie!?! And I don't know why, but my head is telling me his hook is pointing in the wrong direction? It's a fantastic piece though - really like it! :)

[Herojas93]

Very nice.

 

I like the use of shadows.

 

Good job.

[penwiper]

Next up, Queen Mab from Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher, a series about Chicago's only practicing wizard detective, which really starts picking up around book two or three.  She appears in Summer Knight, book four, and is a thorn in Dresden's side for the rest of the series. 

 

In the ruins of my office stood a woman with the kind of beauty that makes men murder friends and start wars.

 

She stood by my desk with her arms folded, facing the door, hips cocked to one side, her expression skeptical. She had white hair. Not white-blond, not platinum. White as snow, white as the finest marble, bound up like a captured cloud to bare the lines of her slender throat. I don't know how her skin managed to look pale beside that hair, but it did. Her lips were the color of frozen mulberries, almost shocking in a smooth and lovely face, and her oblique eyes were a deep green that tinted to blue when she tilted her head and looked me over. She wasn't old. Wasn't young. Wasn't anything but stunning.

 

I tried to keep my jaw from hitting the floor and forced my brain to start doing something by taking stock of her wardrobe. She wore a woman's suit of charcoal grey, the cut immaculate. The skirt showed exactly enough leg to make it hard not to look, and her dark pumps had heels just high enough to give you ideas. She wore a bone-white V-neck beneath her jacket, the neckline dipping just low enough to make me want to be watching if she took a deep breath. Opals set in silver flashed on her ears, at her throat, glittering through an array of colors I wouldn't have expected from opals - too many scarlets and violets and deep blues. Her nails had somehow been lacquered in the same opalescence.

 

Male villain next!  Hmm.  Who shall I pick? . . .   :-D