Doctor Corvus
Through dark glass lenses, he measures the living and tallies the dead.
Clad in heavy, brass-riveted leather and sealed against the foul miasma of the festering lower wards, Doctor Corvus tends the sick where the sane dare not venture.
Behind his herb-stuffed beak lies the calculating mind of an apothecary whose steam-distilled remedies and bag of leeches are far more dangerous than the blight itself.
The Inspiration
The macabre world of the 17th century plague doctors seemed really suitable for pyrographic interpretation. The unknown nature of the black death must have been truly terrifying without the fallback of modern medicine.
It seems that I’m not the only one fascinated by the weird spectacle of physicians who would bring more terror than succour to their patients.
Doctor Corvus is a very stylised “beak doctor” with features that are most definitely corvid and otherworldly. His goggles are slightly steam punk in nature and his clothing is perhaps more flowing than would befit a true fixer of miasmas, but I like the goth vibe that he presents
The Craft
I made the choice to mimic really harsh lighting on what is a predominantly very dark outfit.
To achieve this, I used really heavy line weight in the dark areas allied with an almost ink-pen, scratchy shading in the lighter parts of the image. This line-shading is what gives the folded feeling to the material of the outfit as well as highlighting the roundness of the top hat. Deliberate areas of splotchiness in the shading hint at unsavoury liquids having been absorbed at some stage of the good doctor’s rounds.