Elmo Loves You
What do you get when you take a childrens character full of love and happiness, and twist the story with a horror? This. Taking two elements from completely different worlds, and composing them together to create a new and interesting and all be it disturbing concept.
The theme of twisting reality from the norm carries over to this peice aswell. However choosing a new theme. This time, horror. And what better character to choose for our twisted horror thriller.. than the cuddly and friendly elmo... at least he used to be friendly.
The biggest challenge in this piece was the redesign of elmo. Taking our beloved character and turning him into this sick and twisted monster. The designs ranged from a normal cuddle me elmo doll, into a complete feral creature. Trying to find the design that captured the feel.
I wound up staying very faithful to elmos normal apperance, with slight alterations to his posture and attitude. And chose to rely more on the lighting of the scene to convey the unsettling and creepy feeling.
CONCEPTUALIZING
With an idea like this, it presented a very interesting opportunity to see just how far is too far when pushing a concept. Playing around with the most extreme cases of character design to really push the horror aspect. But in the end actually finalizing with a more recognizable approach, and relying on the pose, lighting, and composition to accomplish the horror theme.
