Who Is Alice?
I think one of my favourite things to do is go people watching. There's a lot of unconscious judging going on when you see appearances. It's a survival instinct, really. One of the reasons why humans have stayed on top of the food chain for millenia is because we can make split second decisions, assessing the situation in a snap. In fact, for my IGCSE Design paper, I related prejudice to evolution---this by no means justifies discrimination, but merely seeks the evolutionary reason behind it.
Anyway.
Characterisation is much more important in illustration. A person should be able to discern a character's qualities at a glance. For Academic Writing, we were given a descriptive paragraph about a character called Alice, and had to draw Alice the way the paragraph envisioned it.
Even the quickest glance at the grim look on Alice's face lets you know that she was not on peaceful terms with the inhabitants of this planet and didn't want to be. Darting, suspicious eyes and an unsmiling mouth warned off even the friendliest souls. Alice did not walk past people approaching her on the sidewalk; she bulldozed through them. If those she cleared from her path attempted to protest, the resounding explosion of her words overcame their feeble sputtering. To those who knew how to interpret it, Alice's "mode" of dressing was another warning signal. Her coil of red-gray hair were held down---almost---with a limp bandana. Safety pins took the place of buttons on the man's tweed jacket she wore. To complete her ensemble, Alice squeezed her bare feet into a pair of silver sneakers.
So I did quite a lot of sketches for this one. Despite having a name like "Alice" (which makes you think a wide-eyed girl wandering in Wonderland), I thought she sounded like a very aggressive, very crude, very eccentric.
Click on images to enlarge.
I thought these qualities are best expressed in an older person, especially since the paragraph describes her as having "red-gray hair". I made sure to focus on her eyes and jaws, and the way she slouches over to get that "bulldozer" look. I emphasised on giving her deep set eyes and small pupils, which illustrates suspicion.
One of my all-time favourite writers is Roald Dahl. He sees children as heroes, and adults are boring old creatures who have no fun whatsoever. I read tons of his books as a child (and still go back to them from time to time!) He greatly influenced my childhood. His books are illustrated by Quentin Blake, whose humourous style complements Dahl's writings very well. One of my favourite characters is Miss Trunchbull, the monstrous principal in Matilda, so I had her in mind when I was drawing Alice.
I made sure to incorporate the little details in, since they made up a large part of Alice's description. Like Quentin Blake, I wanted to exaggerate these eccentricities and create a very humourous atmosphere.
Alice, everyone. Everyone, Alice.
So I gave her gigantic safety pins which she uses to clasp her tweed overcoat with (it's really a man's jacket but on her it's an overcoat). I gave her a cane, also made out of safety pins, to push people out of the way with, as well as squeezed her disproportionately large feet into silver sneakers. Lastly, I paid special attention to her grimace and deadly eyes.
I also thought it would be fitting to give her a shadow, rounding off the whole grim, nightmarish look.
Since I didn't have watercolours, this was done in gouache. It's a similar texture, except that gouache is more opaque and doesn't mix very well, so it's a bit trickier.
Overall, I thought it was a very great exercise. I love visualising the cartoon versions of people. Most of the other kids grew a younger version of Alice, probably because "Alice" is a very "young" name. But I love the challenge of visualising her as something different, something monstrous and eccentric but humourous as well.