Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Louis Labeck



I managed to find some time over Easter to knuckle down and do some character design work for what's probably going to be my next short film about a mime artist. The inspiration came from a brilliant 1 minute theatre play by Jack Goodstein which I saw at the 'Write On' 05 writing festival between Harrogate Theatre and Brooklyn College, New York. I think I like the (top) design, but please do comment. After all, that's the joy of blogging, right!
The sketch above was one my fist drawings. I like the rhythm and flowing lines but I've tried to achieve a more cartoony sense of caricature, particularly in the face.
I like the head in this concept (left) but I decided that definite bones, instead of 1920's rubber-hose arms, would make for clear poses. I've also settled for more minimal clothing which I think emotes a more impressionistic design. And I wouldn't want to get bogged down in all that CGI cloth!

Much more on this film over the next few weeks and months.

2 comments:

David Bunting said...

Thanks for kind words Mario. The power of blogging for independent film development, hey. Keep posted for developments!

David Bunting said...

My friend Andrew from Blur Studios has just sent me an email and I'd thought I'd share a little of it here about the designs. Thanks Andy.

- I like those designs a lot. Very nice shapes and looks like it would be a lot of fun to animate. The top design is best as you say. I really like the watercolour too. So what are your intentions with the new film? I always try to be focusing on something new, even if its just new software or technique.

Well, my main intention is to give myself a fun character animation challenge and hopefully create memorable a performance. Being a mime artist, the character never talks, so it's a good opportunity to communicate totally through action. I've never used cloth before on a character, so that's going to be one of my main technical challenges in the piece.