Ford Prefect is, I expect, a strange man. Here's how the book describes him:

He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspicuously handsome. His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backwards from the temples. His skin seemed to be pulled backward from the nose. There was something very slightly odd about him, but it was difficult to say what it was. Perhaps it was that his eyes didn't seem to blink often enough and when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began involuntarily to water on his behalf. Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their neck.

The strange thing is I have always seemed to have envisioned Ford in a particular way. How I think he should look like hasn't changed much over the years. He should look slightly eccentric, with his face kinda flowing backwards to the back of his head. Over-enthusiastic grin.

Oddly, it was only after sculpting and painting tha head that I realized the striking resemblance to Martin Short. 

  

Experimenting with Ford's look. 
Click to zoom

I think the major problem with Ford was deciding on his attire. He WAS supposed to be dressed as an out-of-work actor. According to a friend previously at Oxford (by the time I write this anyway), there's no one defining look for the OOW acting profession! The BBC TV series had him wear a 3 piece suit, which I thought was a tad too formal. 

The book, on the other had, makes no mention of what he wears. I decided to meet the halfway point, taking a hint from the BBC, and dressing him in a shirt and loose tie for the not-so-formal look. I did keep some of the colours from the show. Why a purple shirt? Well, Arthur was red/brown, Zaphod was blue, Trillian was Red/brown too, the Bugblatter was brown, and the Vogon was green, so it was a viable option to provide a nice range of colours to the series. Besides, it is rather eccentric...


photos and pictures featuring the Ford Prefect figure