The start of consolidating my research and initial sketches - John Christie character illustrations

I ordered a book called '10 Rillington Place' a few days ago but it's taking a while to come through. But I've continued with the resources I have so far...

After reading and watching documentaries of John Christie again, I have started to compile a list of words which I think relate to his personality such as (the obvious ones) liar, murderer etc. (and the not so obvious) low self esteem, attention seeking. I then looked up these words in the reverse symbolism dictionary and listed any exciting imagery that I thought could work.

After creating my symbolic reference list to look back at while creating my initial sketches, I began to look more in depth at his earlier life, his murderous life, and his arrest and conviction. Writing any main events which happened during these periods of time. Then, again, writing anymore adjectives/words and their symbols which I thought were appropriate.

The Early Life research and symbolic reference list along with some quick sketches

I then began to draw. It didn't go so well... I was attempting to just draw the symbols that I had found combined to make an image. This was what I was planning to do but they just didn't seem to be creating the message I was hoping for. I tried a few initial sketches for the earlier life, and a few for the murderous time, but didn't try any for the conviction time, this is because I knew something wasn't working but I couldn't put my finger on it and I didn't want to waste valuable time before speaking to my tutors. 

Initial sketch - I do like the mystery behind this image
but is this something that could be in the background/within
an image?

Initial sketches - story gets lost within the image. Too abstract.
I need to work out to subtly hint towards these symbols.

Again, I quite like the bottom right image here, but need to refine
the idea and put it more in context.

So after speaking to both Jonny and Pete Lloyd, they helped me figure out what was wrong. (It was quite obvious in the end!) The story was getting lost. I was concentrating too much on the symbolism and I'd forgotten to get the story across. Originally I was, sort of, going for this, but was hoping it would still seem relevant to the character John Christie. However, after doing the initial sketches and talking to Jonny and Pete, I realise it's just not going to work. This is not to say I'm not going to use symbolism in these images. I just need to illustrate the story and then find a way to work the symbols into the illustrations. So the research hasn't been a waste of time. And at least now I know what I need to aim for. Its going to have to be back to the drawing board for these images! And thanks to Jonny I have three books he's lent me which are going to help;

'Scene of the Crime - Photographsfrom the LAPD Archive'
I think this will help me for both the Christie images as well as the
Timothy Evans images. Every page of this book has a dynamic view
of a crime scene and often hints of more than is scene, can I take this idea
into my images?

This book is where all my text comes from. It is a book
filled with posters and flyers throughout WW2. This is the same era
as the story so it ensures the text is in-keeping with the time.

This book is to help with both text and image - It is filled
with board games from the era of Christies childhood, right through
to adulthood. I think I may include children's toys in some of the images
and I think this book will help a lot.

First though, I think I may have a break from this bit of my FMP and begin on the book about Timothy Evans. I described my plan for this book to Jonny and Pete and they suggested I get on with it first as it's the one I'm most confident about.

Before I forget from the tutorial meeting, I've written a quick list of questions I should ask myself when I do return to the John Christie Illustrations;