Fun with Villainy

Media Invite

(Daddy blogs)

Remember the book review I did for Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong last month? The one which had both Ash & Ayd itching to find out the whodunit ending. Well, it turned out the authors - Adan & Felicia - of the book were itching to meet the 2 boys as well and so they were invited down to a special writing workshop at the Arts House over the weekend.

Villains are always going to be the most flamboyant, intriguing and interesting characters of any story, aren't they? Think Darth Vader, Magneto, Megatron, The Joker, or even Dr Heniz Doofenshmirtz. So together with Andrew who is the illustrator of the book series, the authors conducted a Creating A Convincing Villain workshop where the kids got some pointers on how to create their very own treacherous kick-ass villain.

And I have to say, the response was rather overwhelming!

The kids were taken through the initial thought processes of fleshing out a character's three important aspects: Appearance, Psychology and Background.

Whether the desired villain is has four arms with a cape (Appearance), or plotting to take over the world (Psychology), or turned evil due to an unhappy childhood (Background), the boys certainly had loads of fun trying to inject some villainy into their very own characters.

Once they had completed the character sketches of their villains, they were then taught how to give a face to the characters. I too, picked up nuggets of drawing tips from the workshop - did you know you can make the character appear older or younger by varying the position of his eyes? When the eyes are closer to the forehead, he appears older while he looks younger when his eyes are closer to the chin. Interesting!

As for the boys, they definitely enjoyed crafting out their very own villains.

No names yet, though I'm pretty certain words like 'poopypants' and 'captain booger' would creep their way into their naming process.

Well, at least they thoroughly enjoyed the workshop... together with one of their buddies too! As well as getting to meet the authors of the Sherlock Sam book series of course.

And to top it off, they were gifted an autographed copy of Sherlock Sam's latest mystery adventure - Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning!

The boys can't wait to get started on the book... and yes, me included. Heh.

Both Sherlock Sam books are retailing at local bookstores for S$10.59 each. For more information, you can check out Sherlock Sam's website at http://www.epigrambooks.sg/?p=6406 or his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SherlockSamSeries

*Read my previous book review of Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong HERE.