Character Development: The Bogeyman

I felt I had to design a character for the bogeyman as it is the most recognizable monster within my theme. It is seen regularly in popular culture and has many different variations. I looked at a few of the concepts that already exist.

Sinister/Sinister 2:

  The Sinister movies are awful as a most films that feature the bogeyman as an antagonist, which is a shame. I sat through Sinister and a quarter of Sinister 2 which was aurally abusive and visually boring to say the least. The character design was equally lackluster and uninspired, looking like the walking corpse of Heath Ledger the design looks tacky and cheap. His mouth is sealed shut possibly referencing the method of talking through children he has captured but overall I feel it loses a key feature of horror antagonists. The children that act as his minions are also very uninspired a dull as horror tropes are used, pale children with black eye sockets are extraordinarily overused. I gained nothing from watching this film.

Boogeyman:

  In terms of being an enjoyable film this horror is almost as bad as Sinister but survives based on the pure cheese within the film. The Boogeyman is pure CGI and is represented as a smokey almost charred man with a psychotic wide eyed face. Again pretty uninspired but is somewhat acceptable and a lot more horrific than what Sinister had to offer.

The Babadook:

  I really enjoyed this film, some say it is overrated but I found it rather enjoyable. The monster was not the Bogeyman but the Babadook which directly draws inspiration from the Bogeyman. The Babadook manifests itself a a creepy man wearing a trench coat and a top hat. His movement is lightening fast. Overall this is rather interesting design, the use of shadow and darker less identifiable form adds to the creepiness of the character. The distortion of his fingers into long, dark claws is particularly interesting to the character giving this manifestation far more aggressive features than most other visualizations of this beast.

Fungus The Bogeyman:

A recently rebooted Television show features the Bogeyman as an underground species. As the target audience is primarily children the characters design emphases heavily on the use of the word bogey. They are seen as disgusting and obnoxious creatures using vile bright greens and pudgy unflattering figures. I feel that although this design is innovative in comparison to other designs it is ultimately aimed at children thus removing any element of fear or horror in their design replacing it with toilet humor.

Rise Of The Guardians:

This animated film is known for its innovative character design based on folklore.Though sadly I feel like the bogeyman is the least innovative and interesting of all of the other amazing designs. He is  a simple slender and refined looking man with sharp features and shadowy abilities. A more interesting aspect of him is that he can summon nightmares from a material stolen from the sandman, a mythical man based around good dream, These nightmares manifest as horses which he can interact with. Though I would not describe the concept as scary I would claim it was a intimidating design.

My Design:

My designs are very different to what I researched I felt I should design my character based on what would scare myself rather than focus on a target audience that it would scare. I choose to create a creature with a twisted humanoid form, it is cloaked and shadowy with a skeletal face. My final design has a multi-faced monster with a similar form, I felt that adding extra interchangeable faces would make the beast seem like it could cater to any fear. Overall I like this design and am excited to carry this forward.