OUAT Portraits by Adam Osgood (& A Question For You All...)

OUAT's Snow by Adam Osgood

An illustration post for you today, with some interesting Once Upon A Time fairy tale character portraits by Adam Osgood.

The thing most interesting about these is that they are so "illustrative", even more than caricatures of the actors playing their characters. This gives us some very different illustrations of familiar fairy tale characters and, I think, gives another possible perspective on these archetypes than the ABC show does. It's kind of cool.

      

                

I've included quite a few different portraits (you can find even more on his website HERE and his Tumblr blog HERE) and although I probably don't need to label them for you I should point out there are a few characters with more than one portrait. Snow has two (the one at the head and the other in white/grey diamonds), the Mirror is shown in both genie and mirror form and Belle is shown in country girl mode as well as in her traveling cloak (one of my favorites).

 

The Evil Queen actually has a whole page of different looks! (You can find them on Mr. Osgood's site & Tumblr, linked above), something which is really interesting when considering archetypes. Pictured are the Snow White's Evil Queen/Stepmother look (above next to her current nemesis), The Evil Queen taking on the guise of Ursula (because, if you remember, there was a real one revealed as a punch line), and the one in the hat is Regina/Evil Queen in hunt mode. I think we first see this version of her in the Hansel and Gretel episode, although there was a separate  - and wonderfully creepy - blind witch in that OUAT story too.

I really should post more on Once Upon A Time - there really is so much to delve into regarding use of fairy tales and fairy tale characters and motifs, even if it's not your preferred type of show. Now that the current season has brought the Wicked Witch of the West to life, complete with Oz additions and metaphors, the season is much better and richer in lore than the Neverland half (which consisted of a LOT of wandering around in Peter Pan's jungle LOST. Yes, exactly like that old show). Even though we've had essentially a third (?) "reset" of people stuck somewhere and missing memories etc this iteration is proving quite interesting... (and that's all I'll write about re my opinion on the plot lines of OUAT for now).

                                  

I'm considering the idea of a chat board/forum type of thing to add to the blog, so people who want to discuss episodes from different fairy tale series (specifically OUAT and Grimm at present) and various TV specials have a place to talk specifically to fans/viewers who are also fellow fairy tale friends. Although it's late in the season this time round there's still  to talk about!

What do you think? Is that a feature you'd enjoy and/or find useful?