The Witcher project
Character Profile
Name: Minodora
Age: 22
Race: elf
Place of living: Brokilon forest
Status: the forest warrior
Abilities: magic, telekinesis, healing
Main character traits: stubbornness, cunning, likes to work alone
Negative traits: distrust of others, anger issues
Positive traits: loyalty, tolerance
Animals: giant white wolves
The biggest fear: getting lost in anxious thoughts and losing her mind
Minodora has all the traits of a real warrior - a cruel, impartial and cold-blooded adventurer, thirsting for reprisals. Life has always prepared her for new dangers, so it is difficult for a girl to trust others, she can only rely on herself and her wolves, that protect her everywhere.
She was found by a tribe of forest warriors after her family was killed by a mythical creature that had awakened because of the Witcher…She did not speak and only began to walk. She was brought to the leader of the tribe and his daughter, who recognized the girl as a purebred elf, with pale skin, long ears and purple hair. Minodora has heterochromia, indicating her ability to manipulate the nearly lost magic of the ancient elves.
Her name means “lunar gift”, because it was on the full moon that the inhabitants of the tribe stumbled upon a little girl in the thicket of the forest. From childhood, she was taught martial arts and survival in the wild. The old sorcerer tried to figure out how she could harness her powers, but he couldn't help her with it.
Many years later, she found out that it was because of Geralt that she had lost her family and vowed to herself to deal with him. On the basis of this, she quarrels with her father and sister, saying that “her duty is to deal with the murderer of her family”. She’s steel looking for the witcher.
Mood-board
When I thought about her appearance, I started from the images of elves in different cinematic universes and from my long-standing thoughts about my own character, so you can say that I finally brought my thoughts to life
I wanted to make her as similar as possible to a forest creature, with special features and characteristics
She looks like Daenerys from the Gme of Thrones I think...
Concept arts
This was my first time drawing concept art for a character and I tried to bring to life all my ideas that had accumulated during this time... Minodora should look feminine, but at the same time, when you look at her, it should be clear that the girl has great strength and strong character
For the first time I drew her with white hair, but then decided to make her more unusual. So here is she, with purple hair!
Model's profile
I asked a model some question about her appearance and made a small list.
As you can see I also took a photo of her.
Product list
Most of the products were used for eye makeup.
There're not as much of them as you may except, but if you know what you're doing there's no need to use lots of different products. Also you may overdo!
Application order
I tried to describe all the steps clearly, but not to write too much.
Every step is written in the specific order.
Pose board
I wanted my character to look relaxed and feminine, but at the same time she needed to look like a true warrior.
Makeup Process
The model changed clothes before makeup so as not to stain either mine or her clothes. First, the model applied her primer to prepare her skin for makeup. For my character, she needed to partially hide the eyebrows to make them shorter. Using a glue stick and an eyebrow comb, I combed the ends of the eyebrows up and let them dry. Next, I applied baby powder, which is very similar to translucent powder, and covered the combed parts of the eyebrows with an orange color corrector. As you know, orange corrector often covers facial hair because they have a slightly bluish tint, due to color theory, orange cancels blue. Then I alternated powder and foundation to completely cover combed hair. On the untouched parts of the eyebrows, I applied white corrector and covered them with purple shadows so that they look similar with the color of the wig. Then, taking a large brush, I begin to apply a foundation, also touching the ears and neck. To brighten a skin tone, I used a concealer and a white color corrector. Apply it on the chin, forehead, nose and under the eyes to highlight these parts of the face. Taking the smallest brush available, I applied black shadows to the lower eyelid and under the outer corners of the eyes, blended with a soft brush. Next, I took red shadows and covered all the upper eyelids with them, since my model has an overhanging eyelid and most of it is hidden when she opens her eyes (it is important to know the shape of the eyes of the model in order to avoid mistakes when applying makeup), also there're red lines on her cheeks that are done with the same product. With eyeliner, I line the eyes and draw a kind of elven/traditional makeup on the bridge of the nose and forehead, I also add a red detail with the help of shadows. I finish the makeup by applying a dark shade of lipstick and some highlighter to the cheeks and nose of the model. A pre-prepared wig has two braids that start at the forehead and are gathered at the back into a small ponytail. In order to put it on, the model made a bun to pull her hair back. You need to start putting on the wig from behind, in order to later hand it over to the model, she must hold it in front, on the hairline, so that you can easily hide the bun under the wig and it hasn’t moved anywhere.
EVALUATION
I photoshopped the eye color and lighted the skin tone because somehow it went too yellowish on the camera
I have finished my character design workshop for the Netflix TV series The Witcher. Having created mood/pose boards, concept art of the character's appearance and makeup, I was able to bring it to life, as well as write up a list of materials and an application process. It was the first experience in this field and I am glad that I got the opportunity to try myself as a make-up artist.
I would like to sum up the conclusions that I made for all the time spent on the creation of the character. I'm happy with how I thought of the character, her story and appearance. The concept art came out pretty good, especially the final makeup design I did with the face template. If I had more time and skills, I could probably do a more detailed analysis of the character's appearance and think over small things like hair or accessories.
In the future, I should spend more time thinking about the sequence of actions and perhaps create a plan in advance in order not to make such mistakes again. Despite the fact that the result was not what I expected, I analyzed my mistakes and am going to improve my skills.
However, I also have something to add about the makeup process itself. From the very beginning, I had a problem with thinking through the sequence of my actions. Due to the fact that I was not prepared to work with the task that I set for myself, I had to start makeup from the beginning. If you look at the attached time-lapse you can see that from the very beginning I wanted to use white body paint to brighten the skin tone of the model, but when I started contouring i realized that the face was too white. Thanks to the teacher who explained to me how to lighten the skin tone, I corrected my mistake, but I was very sorry for the time I've lost. However, the rest of the process went quite smoothly, even though I was nervous about the failure at the very beginning.