Captain Hook: An Introduction

Because all my collaborative projects are hard-surface modelling, I wanted to ensure through the personal projects that I had chance to create a high poly character to have organic modelling on my showreel. Other than that though, I was stumped in terms of what to make. This quickly turned into google image searches looking for inspiration. This was when I came across existing characters whose designs had been changed and adapted to fit into a new scene or style. For example:
(Press on each image to enlargen it!)

Disney Hero's as fashion models

Disney turns hipster

Disney Villains as a fashion line?

I found this really interesting as not only through art am I giving life to a character, I'm giving it a different life and purpose. I really like the idea of building a pirate ship for my other personal project and wondered if there was a way to incorporate the two projects together as a final render. Boom! The idea of Captain Hook was formed.
Now, how could I adapt him? The options are endless, anything other than a pirate right? So through more google searching I came across a lyric from "New Math" by Ben Burnham:

"What's a Pirate minus the ship? Just a creative homeless guy". And this got me thinking. What if Captain Hook was homeless? What if, abandoned by his crew, he had lost his ship? Where is the line of him being a pirate captain or a homeless guy in fancy dress? This is the basis of the project.

Through pre-production development, I came to this design:

Heavy wear and tear in the textures of the clothing, dirty skin and shaggy, unkept hair was emphasized to show the loss of money and hierarchy. However, I tried to keep the main features from the Disney design to ensure as a character, he is still recognisable to the audience.

The modelling is to start as of tomorrow morning, and progress will be added as frequently as possible. Enjoy the updates- me hearties!