Category8 - Blog Posts
Last entry for my Descendants redesigns! Finally here’s Audrey! I wanted her look to feel like it was trying a little too hard and extreme towards sweetness. I also wanted to give a nod to her being the antagonist later in the series by giving her a cape that resembled the classic Disney villain collar. I also wanted her crown to look like it could probably be used as a weapon if she really wanted to, and mimic horns.
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms or buy prints!
My Instagram -- My Twitter -- Buy Prints
Been a while, but here’s some final additions to my little Descendants redesign series. This is how I interpreted Prince Ben! 👑 I wanted him to come off friendly and approachable in his features, so more rounded shapes instead of a really chiseled guy. I just thought of him more as a laid back prince in his aesthetic, so he doesn’t even wear his royal coats. I was also mainly inspired by Raoul’s look in the Phantom of the Opera movie haha 🌹
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms or buy prints!
My Instagram -- My Twitter -- Buy Prints
Finally, here’s the last villain kid of my Descendants redesigns, Jay! For his character, I imagined that Jafar implemented rougher parenting than Queen Grimhilde or Cruella, and subjected Jay to living the life of a street rat to toughen him up (I love the live action take on Jafar where he’s a social climber and started off like Aladdin as a street rat and a thief), give him the natural tools to fend for himself, and scrapping with brutes on the daily. I liked the idea that that would be where he naturally gets his athleticism and good instincts in his physicality. Any gold items and trinkets on his person are things he’s swiped from others, and unlike Carlos, because Jafar is exiled from the palace and without his genie magic, Jay hasn’t inherited any fineries for his wardrobe.
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms or buy prints!
My Instagram -- My Twitter -- Buy Prints
Continuing my redesigns for Descendants, this is my take on Carlos de Vil! Here’s where I can see why the modern setting approach works better for a character like Carlos, whose mother isn’t close to the other villains’ time periods. Let’s just pretend that in this take, the school and world take place in a “out of time” sort of setting where it’s primarily a fantasy oriented place with the possibility of characters coming in from modern time periods. That, or the other characters are just suuuuper old fashioned. 🙃 For Carlos, I liked the idea of his wardrobe being old money hand downs passed over to him by Cruella - high fashion materials that are now tearing and falling apart. I kept him slightly shorter than the girls (even though it’s not super apparent without a height comparison) just because I liked that idea of him being the runt of the litter in his friend group.
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms or buy prints!
My Instagram -- My Twitter -- Buy Prints
Following my redesign of Mal, here’s my take on Evie from Descendants! 👑 I wanted her look to be contrast Mal and be a lot more polished since she’s royalty. I also leaned more into prim and princess-like based on her personality in the movie, but still maintaining dark elements in her aesthetic. I gave her a little skull makeup bag as a nod to the skull in her mother’s dungeon from the original film!
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms or buy prints!
My Instagram -- My Twitter -- Buy Prints
Here's an addition to the previous Mal redesign I posted, just with an extra outfit. This is my take on her coronation dress at the end of the story, fully embracing the red palette that was previously creeping in, now that she's standing in her individuality, away from and opposing her mother.
I wanted her coronation look to have a mix of princess and lightness in there, but not take away the witchiness and villain aesthetic from her. I also gave her a small cape to reflect her hero moment at that point in the story.
These are some images I was looking at for her two looks, going back to some early concepts from Sleeping Beauty (1959):
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms!
My Instagram -- My Twitter
My friends showed me the Descendants movie for the first time, and I am very clearly not the target audience for this franchise and that's fine lol.
But for fun, I wanted to do this redesign if I were tasked with imagining the Descendants characters. I personally don't dig the modern setting, so I would've leaned towards a fantasy aesthetic closer to something like The School for Good and Evil.
I knew I wanted Mal to have her mother's (and father's) unnatural complexion, and yellow eyes from both. I also wanted to give another small nod to Hades with the blue flame (if she were to use ger spellbook, the magic from it would manifest in blue flames). I gave her little purple baby horns that would turn black as she got older. I also put hints of red in her outfit, which I wanted to be her main color (especially for her coronation look at the end of the story) later on instead of just purple and black like Maleficent, to reflect her slowly coming into her own. Overall, my goal was to push her look to be a lot more witchy and supernatural looking.
I'll likely redesign the other villain kids as well. Let me know if you'd like to see them too!
--
Check out more of my work on other platforms!
My Instagram -- My Twitter
ok but all the jokes aside, i DO appreciate the fact that Rise of Red brought back a theme that's not only central to the story of descendants as a whole, but that's also been neglected in the last few installments of the franchise: the theme of parental abuse and the empowerment of the abused child to take back their life and learn to be loved
it also touched on the theme of moral ambiguity, and the reality of living with certain privileges (and the blind spots that come with them)
the execution is debatable, obviously, but they were there, and i appreciate that, especially since they're pretty rare themes in children's mainstream media
ok further thought having finished re-watching the OG Descendants:
not only is Cruella de Vil wildly out of place in a line up of otherwise fairytale & fairytale-adjacent villains the film also just completely fails to grasp her as a character?
Like: Jay's thing is that he was raised to be selfish and only look out for number one and he learns the value of being a good team player. Evie was raised to think being beautiful is the only thing that matters and learns that she's actually smart and talented. they're both solid character arcs w good messages for the audience and engage with what made their respective parents evil.
Carlos's thing is that he was. raised to think dogs are bad and then learns that dogs are nice? problems here:
a. this isn't a Growth Arc like the others bcos its not like he was raised to think dogs suck bcos love & friendship are bad his mother straight up lied to him that they're dangerous and as soon as he met one he realised they're not. he doesn't have a personal flaw to work on, he was just ignorant.
like there's shades of a good arc here w idk his mother having raised him to think love&friendship are overrated and that the only thing that matters is what people can provide for you? he would be all like 'what's the point of having a dog they're nuisances who just eat and poop all day' and then he would learn about unconditional love. but no that's not what happens bcos his mother just lied to him about what dogs are.
& this stands out bcos the other character journeys are actually very solid!!
b. hating dogs. was never Cruella's thing? Cruella's thing is consumerism. she's into furs bcos it's a way of showing off how rich and powerful she is and slaughtering 99 puppies just to make the world's fanciest coat is the ultimate expression of her conspicuous consumption. its a custom baby seal leather boots situation.
so like Cruella's kid's issue should be having been raised to value material goods over people's feelings which is an arc that absolutely could be resolved by him befriending a dog but again the root cause of his issue with dogs is that they're 'rabid pack animals'
aughhhh (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
