For our first BFA seminar assignment, we were to design characters based on the poem by Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess". The three characters I chose were the Duke of Ferrara, the Duchess, and Fra Pandolf, a painter.
For the Duke, I relied solely on silhouettes to establish a shape and pose that I felt was characteristic of his evil self. In the poem, he acts as the narrator telling his friend of how he was wronged by the duchess and admitted that he planned her poisoning.
The Duchess, was said to be flirty and rather young, 14 when she married the Duke, but i portrayed her just before she had been poisoned at the age of 17
Fra Pandolf, was my favorite character to design, Fra meaning, friar. He was a man of the cloth but was commissioned to paint the young Duchess's portrait.
