I was finally able to start drawing and decided to do the father's face first as male faces would be the hardest for me to get right. I used Andrew Loomis' facial proportional sketches to get the base face right, and then edited on top of that. The father needs to have a stressed and unkempt air around him which I tried to capture in his sharper face and unkempt (for the time) facial hair; I played around with the cheekbones, sharpness, and fullness of the face as my character has to be more withdrawn and dichotomous to his plump wife lively wife.
Again working with a base face but she was lacking a certain vitality to her face which I fixed by lightening the eyes and giving direct eye contact to the viewer, editing nose, and giving a pursed, cheeky look to the lips. They were simple changes but drastically improved the design.
The first hair I sketched definitely looked too modern, a bit frumpy, and also managed to age her so I looked more carefully at the reference I’d collated and worked from those. The hair is generally curly with an array of twists and tucked hair to create beautiful but extremely intricate hairstyles. This will be tricky to model, but look great if I can pull it off.
I preferred the longer more free hair because it works better with her relaxed and maternal personality also adding thicker eyebrows because it makes the face look more youthful.
Bethany and Eliza are quite opposite, the first being rash, cruel, and apathetic and the other being cautious, careful, timid but calculating. I wanted to capture this in the designs and also tried to make them look in their early teens.
It’s interesting how much difference changing the mouth’s position and hair/eye colour can be; whilst the top twin has an almost manic look to her, the other looks really withdrawn/sad.
Bethany is definitely showier and outgoing so her hairstyles are larger, curlier, and more glamorous whereas Eliza being more demure has more modest and low-key hairstyles, however it wasn’t uncommon for the younger girls to have their hair out and flowing with simple braids, with accessories such as flowers.
Strongest designs; for Bethany I prefer the longer 1st hairstyle because she would prefer to show off the length and curliness of her hair, the 2nd one also looks too mature. For Eliza the 1st hairstyle is a bit too simple and she’d most likely be forced to wear more intricate hairstyle for social events and photographs; which is why the 2nd one works better, and thus we have the twins.
For Vivienne I wanted to capture her cultured and suave personality, so I played around with a more sensual face. Looking at my ref also helped me solidify her facial proportions and I really like how calm and collected she ended up; also carrying an aristocratic air.
I really like the glamour that her headdresses give her, but also the exotic flair of her textured long hair, so I’ll be playing around with both maybe even combining them for a nice middle ground, accessories will also be important for this character.
Keeping the headdress as the main feature, I experimented with having her hair out loose and styled differently; looking at the design and getting peer feedback, the fully wrapped hair looks the best. It has a sleek and sophisticated look.
I started out with a base cat face so I knew the proportions were correct, and then squashed them in for the comical, and recognisable Persian cat face; these cats (though not as squished in the face yet, were highly sort after pets for the rich.
I preferred the flatter faces as they had the most character and opportunities for facial expression. I do like the oddly angry look, but wanted to try out a smiling cat; he became hilariously creepy.
I ended up redesigning the face because something felt wrong, the cat was looking a bit flat and I wanted it to be closer to some of my Persian cat ref.
Now that I've finished those I can start designing their outfits.
