Villain Series 1 of 6: The Dark Knight Joker

            

"Villain [vil-uhn] - A cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime."  As character artists we are fascinated with what makes our heroes shine so brightly, which brings us to the sheer darkness of pure evil.  I wanted to do a quick series of six of my favorite evil characters from movies that I have come to love growing up.  These are not characters that were once good, and then became evil (i.e. Darth Vader).  They range from being filled with hate and rage, to being machine-like and ruthless.  This series all started with thumbnail sketches on my DS in colors and then polished in Photoshop with reference handy to inspire me.  I wanted it to be an exercise in quick dirty painting and accuracy in interpreting my reference in my own way without losing the essence of the character.

We begin with the Joker as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger in the upcoming Dark Knight film.   The Joker I remember from the old television series and to an extent, the Nicholson Joker were a bit on the goofy side.  The Joker by his nature is whimsical and amusing at times, but is inherently a violent sociopath who murders and commits crimes for his own amusement.  The clown make-up has always been frightening to people in general, and to this day I still wonder why clowns are placed in the presence of children.  In any case, this potential portrayal of the Joker in the Dark Knight gives me hope that I will finally see how deep Batman's archenemy will go to bring him to his knees.

Stay tuned for image 2 of 6 in the Villain Series!