Chelsea Coils Illustration: the brother's grimm

Character Development: Witch

The character I decided to develop first is the Witch, I started off by thinking about her appearance and what her features would look like.

I started off by looking at hands and the different positions I could draw them in. I wanted to focus on hands at first because one of my initial illustration ideas I wanted to focus mainly on the witches hand so I thought if I wanted to go along this route I should think about practising. I am very pleased with how some of these turned out because drawing hands is not my strong point but I think I caught on quite quickly. All the hands I drew were drawn from life/photographs I took. Then I started looking at facial features. I began with the eyes and I basically drew surrounding peoples eye structures and positions and converted them into elderly woman eyes by adding wrinkles and lines. I really like these sketches and I think they have given me a very rough idea on how I want the eyes of my witch to look. I next looked at the nose and how it was structure. I started out by drawing a regular nose from the side and developing it on from there. I added lumps and bumps and crooked areas just like a stereotypical witches nose. I drew a selection of these, from different angles too, and I am really fond of a few of the sketches.

(I am currently writing this after I have finished my illustrations and even though I really like most of these drawings I did not use any in my final images due to a huge change in my plan and process.)

19th Century Childrens Fashion and Hairstyles

19th Century children's fashion was pretty much the exact same as adult fashion in the Victorian era. Little girls would wear pinafores and dresses and boys would wear breeches, frilly tops and skeleton suits. The hairstyles children had were similar to that of adults too. Here are two links where I found a lot of 19th Century children's clothing and fashion:

http://www.pinterest.com/sandyslookingbk/18th-19th-century-children-s-fashions/

http://www.pinterest.com/susanstessin/18th-19th-century-children-s-fashions/

histclo.com

blog.familytreemagazine.com

19th Century Mens Fashion and Hairstyles

Men in the 19th Century wore coats with a long tail and short cut fronts, a sometimes quilted waist coat and knee breeches. They also wore a tall hay which later developed into the top hat. Mens hair was usually styled to look windswept or cut short and curled and many men had mustaches and beards. Because the Father character in Hansel and Gretel is a woodcutter I decided that he wouldn't be wearing this type of clothing and would be in his work uniform.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/introduction-to-19th-century-fashion/

historicaltidbits.blogspot.com

pintrest.com

sulisfineart.com

bjws.blogspot.com

19th Century Womans Fashion and Hairstyles

Women's fashion of the early 19th century consisted of corsets, bonnets, bustles and petticoats. Fashion in the Victorian period had a large amount of women wearing full skirts. Corsets were lightly bones and quilted. The Victorian style was finished off with frilled hems and petticoats. Bonnets and hats were worn outdoors but indoors linen caps were worn. Hairstyles during this time included raised top knots and a middle parting with curls either side of the face.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/i/introduction-to-19th-century-fashion/