Femme Fatale

I think I've realised where I'm steering with this project. The type of character I'm looking at producing the most is a femme fatale type character. Femme fatale to me is very close to a succubus in that she ensnares men by being alluring and seductive. They then lead the man into dangerous and compromising situations. I really like the thought of producing a femme fatale character as to me, the more bad ass, yet sexy characters are always my favourite ones. (Instantly a character from No more heroes called 'Bad Girl' springs to mind)



(I know, she's bad ass right?)

Any way, Alan was explaining what I should be doing, and if memory serves me right (and it's not the best) and whilst I'm fighting the constant temptation of sleep, he gave me an example :

Take the witch from Snow White, read the original texts of snow white, and interpret as I see fit. Research the time period, research witches etc, heavily. Then put a spin on it and push it as far as I want. For example, make that witch one moody ass evil bitch, and put a gothic perhaps spin on it. Thus meaning I'd need to research heavily into gothic.

The thing is, I don't necessarily agree here. I understand the concept , but perhaps I'm taking this too literal, and taking Alan right out of context here. I think that my main focus here is establishing the type of villainess I want to produce, a femme fatale for example. Establishing her back story (possibly referenced from a story) and then producing character designs for it. I was talking to Pol about this, and he gave an example that I think is fitting :

"If you had some goblin or dwarf creature, what does a dwarf do? It lives in a cave, thus it is small. They mine, thus mining tools and a worker appearence (dusty dirty etc). Also it lives in the darkness, so you visualize ways to deal with the darkness."

The back story, and general history of the 'dwarf' character lends its self instantly to the design. Regardless of what narrative it is placed in.

Phil recently posted a comment re. my research into succubuses (which I thoroughly enjoyed reading and researching into) and I had completely missed it, it was :

"Well it seems you've had some enriching discoveries, Jonny - ah, the simple joy of research; there was a lot of animal imagery there - which is also good, because all animals have a symbolic universe too - another pocket of research if you will; i do think that to move your character design away from 'Barbie-goes-demonic' territory, you should consider a blend of human and animal anatomy - a shape-shifter; "

So now I will go back and continue my research into this stuff, find visually rich material and just get to grips with what I want to be creating. Not getting wrapped up in finding a fairy tale or story. I think that is the wrong way entirely of doing this, and it's just making the project seem boring from the start for me.

Again I say, I'm probably taking what's been said to me WAY out of context, and I have a habit of getting stuck inside my head and not thinking outside of the box at all. So I want to take a step back right now, and really spend some time establishing the type of character I want to produce, and furthermore researching that character type heavily and the typical looks and environments they are associated with, that would lend themselves to it's design.

Quite a long post here, probably all dribble, I am very tired so forgive me :)

Thanks, and I look forward to feedback :D