Designing - Roran

As I was struggling to get a clear picture in my head of what Charlie wanted exactly for each of the characters, I decided that the best thing to do would be to draw up a very basic idea of what I had in my head and then give it to him to critique and add elements too. I did not want to go too heavy with any theatrical elements like dirtying of the skin or wounds so I stuck to focussing on hair and facial hair/postiche. I took influence from the character of Aragorn in the original Lord of the Rings films as this was the type of style that I had gathered that Charlie was looking for.

I began with the character of Roran and spoke with the actor, Neal, about the type of growth pattern for his facial hair. He was unable to help me very much as he said that he doesn't usually let much of his facial hair grow out, but promised to remain unshaven for a few days so that I could come and have a look at some point. It was a similar situation with his hair as I asked him if he had naturally straight hair or if it had a wave to it. He said that he had never let his hair grow long enough to notice.
Given my time constraints and the amount of work that needed to be undertaken for this project I was hoping to avoid having to make a wig for any of the characters. Reconstructing a synthetic, pre-made wig and knotting in a lace front would save time but would be far from ideal as it would not, in my opinion, look realistic enough. Hand knotting a wig would take a massive amount of time and I was not sure if I was confident enough with knotting and wig construction to tackle a full wig at this point. I therefore requested that Neal did not cut his hair again and we would review it at the end of March. If his hair was growing at a reasonable rate and could fit the look that the director was hoping for, we would stay with his natural hair, if however, his hair was not growing fast enough or did not suit the character I would commence making a wig at the start of April.

With this in mind I began drawing up a design with hair at the length that I thought we could easily achieve with natural growth and a beard. Obviously if Neal's natural facial hair growth pattern was significantly different to the design, this could be altered later. I used the actor's head shots as a reference as I wanted to make designs that would actually look like the characters to see how the look would fit their face, as opposed to drawing onto a generic face template.

This is the initial design that I came up with and submitted to Charlie, I would base the following designs on the feedback that I received for the first one. 

Charlie loved the overall feel of the design and how the beard worked, however, he felt that he wanted the hair to be a little bit longer. This may prove a problem when using Neal's natural hair, however, I stuck by my decision to review the situation at the end of March. Charlie also requested that the character be a little more weather-beaten to make him appear slightly older than the other characters. I was unsure at first how to achieve this and decided that more research into this would be necessary. As agreed before, Charlie also wanted a little bit of dirtying on the face. This was all positive feedback that I could take forward to further my research and alter my design as appropriate.