Alright, buckle up, my friend, 'cause we're diving into the twisted world of Dune and its charming villain, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. 🙂
I hope you all had a great week, folks! I'm excited to share this next illustration with you all!
I've decided to shift the style a bit away from realism for this piece. Instead, I was going for a more comic book look which is much more challenging for me. Gotta push the envelope, right? 😜
Awright! So who is the Baron?
Consider Baron Vladimir Harkonnen as an authoritarian figure, akin to Jabba the Hutt but with an insatiable thirst for power, ruling over the arid terrain of Arrakis. His corpulent physique and relentless pursuit of authority paint him as a rather nightmarish character.
Let's just say his countenance does not garner affection 😆; it evokes a blend of grotesqueness and a malevolent aura, emblematic of his deceitful nature. Picture this evil figure meticulously crafting nefarious plots, with every fold of excess weight embodying his insidious intentions – an unsettling image indeed. The Dune movie did a pretty good job in my opinion when they picked Stellan Skarsgard for an 80h (that`s right EIGHTY HOUR) make-up prep to play this character in the film (I'm not kidding lol).
Due to this overweight, the Baron navigates his domain via an anti-gravity apparatus. It`s also a way to exert his power over people he encounters. Imagine a colossal balloon brimming with malice and strategic cunning, steadily advancing towards you... 😐 Not a great place to be.
So how did I paint him?
I really channeled some Joker energy into him, I think. His twisted mind kinda reminded me of someone filled with malice and joy in evil-doing. So I thought going for a batman comic book style should do the trick.
- As always, I started with some loose thumbnails as a practice run to get the oils flowing before moving into the big drawing.
- I started with the evil grim as my starting point. The levitating device was represented by lamps attached to his back like Dr. Octopus.
- I wanted to include some greasiness to him, while also making sure he would be wearing jewelry and appreciating his riches. So I added some gold in there to contrast with the dark environment too.
- I then moved on to the initial black and white sketch and started polishing areas of shadow and highlight (A.K.A finessing the values)
- Just look at this bastard! How many evil deeds must he have committed? It`s infuriating. Nice.
- Time to move into colors. I wanted a warm color scheme here, with a lot of contrast. Using red and green together created a lot of color conflict as they are opposite colors in the color wheel. In such a way, this helps me to create an unsettling atmosphere... Exactly what we need for this guy!
- The movie portrayed him as this bald dude, but in the original concept from the Dune books he is a red-haired man, so I decided to stay true to the source material.
Here is what the final looks like
Do you want more!? I got you! 😉
Here is a video of my process with commentaries! Hope you all enjoy this video timelapse! This illustration was made for ep19 of my Dune series
