Hey there!

Oh, c'mon, it wouldn't be Villain Month without the Count!

Count Olaf, the sinister 4th cousin 3 times removed (or is it 3rd cousin, 4 times removed? ;D) of the Baudelaire orphans from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. That was a mouthful! Olaf is a dirty arsonist, an alcoholic, and a rotten schemer, but perhaps worst of all, he's also a horrendous actor but thinks contrarily.

I felt it was necessary to paint Olaf for Villain Month because, even though the end of the books was (to me) pretty bad and the character himself had really transformed from being absolutely terrifying in the first book to becoming Jim Carrey's goofy film portrayal of him by the 11th book, the Snicket books are a big part of my teenage years. I spent a long time being positively obsessed over them (my old AOL screen name was Baudelairefan6 - no longer active, I assure you), and it would seem wrong to leave Olaf in the dust this month since he really did start off as being a great villain.

In fact, the Snicket series has many great villains, not the least of which are Olaf's wretched associates, so don't be shocked if some of them pop up for these next 20 days of October.

Regarding the image: I'm surprised at just how well it turned out. I started with a really messy and amateurish sketch of Olaf and then used a painting method that I learned from a tutorial here on DA and swear by since then, and the piece just kind of unfurled! I think this picture looks pretty good regardless of whether or not it's just a doodle.

When drawing this image, I kept wondering how the old me (13, 14 years old or so) would feel about it, and I think I would have really liked it back then. Baudelairefan6 gives his approval, I suppose. ;D

Anyway, enjoy the image! Let me know your thoughts.

Adobe Photoshop, about 40 minutes total.

Count Olaf is (c) Daniel Handler and/or Harpercollins publishers. Image is (c) me, Andrew Green.