The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I have been working on a few portfolio related pieces involving L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Above I have two character lineups I have been working on, the top are my pencil rough's of the characters and below are the colors I plan on using with each character. I am certain a majority of people have seen the film based loosely on the book, The Wizard of Oz, so they will be familiar with most of the characters presented here, however, I am going to explain why I designed the characters the way I did.

The Scarecrow feels he will never be smart because he doesn't have brains, ironically he comes up with the most solutions in the group, my design for him gives him a carefree look and an over-sized head to show that he is less worried about the world around him, and more focused on what is going on inside his head, the inspiration for his look was Spike from Cowboy Bebop.

The Cowardly Lion was a real challenge to design. He has the largest mass and body of them all, however his posture shows a lack of confidence and shyness in his character. I originally went for sharper features, because Lions normally do, but to avoid having too confident looking of a character, I added more curves and circles to his overall form to help bring out his docile nature.

The Tin Man I gave Lumberjack proportions to his body, a larger chin, upper torso, and forearms is a common trend to those body types. I was certain to make his chest large because he had a large heart, or at least a strong conscience about all living things around him, truly one of the more emotional characters in the book. The red vest and beanie combo are tokens of his former life that he never let go of.

Dorothy went through many transformations. From young adult, to an adolescent child, I chose to go for very young age to help impress upon her innocence. I was certain not to go too far overboard with her design because I wanted to make her the most relate-able character. Even though she comes from a colorless world, I thought making her more vibrant than most of the characters would show how she brings color and harmony into the very colorful land of Oz.