“I hate to say this, but this place is getting to me. I think I’m getting the Fear.” ~ Dr. Gonzo
I’m in the trenches on the Dr. Gonzo character design and after dozens and dozens of variants I have settled on the rough sketch above. When working on a character design, I generally brainstorm a bunch of simultaneous concepts where the goal is to experiment with as many different options as I can think of. I then sit back and evaluate the work I have generated. Finally, I focus in on one character which I think embodies the characteristics I was shooting for. The Simian Nation will remember the kind of Hell’s Angels version of Dr. Gonzo that I have been experimenting with.
At first, I was unsure what version of Dr. Gonzo I wanted to create. Did I want the Hawaiian shirt version or perhaps the disheveled suit? How about the drug addled scene where Dr. Gonzo appears positively demonic when Raoul Duke takes some adrenochrome?
You real Hunter S. Thompson’s aficionados will recall that Dr. Gonzo is supposed to be Samoan although as far as I know he is based on the Mexican-American Lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta. Anyway, I decided stick with the Samoan route and combine it with with shades of adrenochromed devilishness.
I made him shirtless to sport a Samoan tattoo and I tried to make him every bit the force of nature Hunter seemed to suggest. I wanted him to be massive and immovable like a football lineman. I also had many uglier version of the character, but I didn’t want him to be such a monstrous and repulsive villain that you couldn’t identify with him at all. The balance between hate and like was a difficult line to walk although I’ll let you guys be the judge of how he sits with you.
Over the next short while, I am going to take today’s rough sketch of Dr. Gonzo and hammer out the more detailed work, but believe it or not the hard part is behind me. Details are just details and while they often sell the design the riddle is solved in my mind’s eye. I thought you guys might like to see the inner workings so here they are laid bare. The final Dr. Gonzo character design is on the way.
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