Some color swatches for the Spaniard, Santiago de la Cruz, and representative for the power-mongers of the Caribbean during the late 1600s.

At the moment I am leaning towards two on the bottom row, far right: red-black and yellow-black. The red is rich, an expensive dye, and alludes to Santiago's strength and bloodthirsty nature; he's clearly not afraid of a fight. However the yellow seems to portray his age better, and hint at the wealth aspect of his personality. He's clearly much more grizzled and not as youthful as either James or Louis. But yellow retracts from his vicious nature, and may blend a little too well with Louis's shock of blonde hair.

As always, comments and feedback are very welcome.


--Sak
Santiago de la Cruz © Myself, Shamine A. King
For LASALLE, College of the Arts, Singapore

When Louis starts speaking with a tilde~ you know he's doing the "Gay Thing"; he does it to annoy me, like when I'm stuck trying to decide which color combination would compliment his personality the best.

... I like to have mental dialogues with my characters to pretend I have a social life.



--Sak
Captain Louis Despatis © Myself, Shamine A. King

Acting on some advice from the professor, I revisited Louis's color swatches. He suggested experimenting with Louis's hair color from blonde to a red or auburn, as the light hair risks making his already-pale face disappear further.

However, I feel that red hair takes away from the "Frenchness" of his character (since we're playing with stereotypes here, and the "Frenchness" being the reason for his ridiculous pale makeup in the first place); by that stereotype vein, red/auburn hair is more commonly associated with trickster-type characters, whereas Louis is about elegance and grace, despite his silly streak.

Louis will likely stay a blondie, but I experimented with the possibilities regardless, which included more refined outfit combinations. Feedback is welcome, but it's most useful if you can give me reasons why certain combinations seem to work and why others don't besides an "I like X,Y,Z".


--Sak
Louis Despatis © Myself, Shamine A. King
For LASALLE, College of the Arts, Singapore

Starting to zero in on a "final" look for Louis, at least for the three minute animation. If I manage to turn his adventures into a graphic novel this man will definitely have plenty more outfits and color swatches, but for the short animation I am leaning towards the French colors - it is much simpler and easier to associate Louis with his nationality from the get-go, since the animation won't have pages of background story.

He is also staying a blonde, though I'm having trouble settling on a shade. I am leaning towards option #4: Medium-Blonde, possibly tweaking the gold trimming to make it darker so his hair doesn't melt too much. As with the previous color experiments, I feel the darker the hair gets, the less of his flamboyant carelessness comes across, and less of his light-footed daintyness. In a perfect world I'd be able to shade and shine his curls like crazy, but the animation's color will likely be colored with flats.


--Sak
Louis Despatis © Myself, Shamine A. King
For LASALLE, College of the Arts, Singapore

Been itching to try me some semi-realistic Louis since I had that life drawing class on Saturday. His body turned out a little stockier but that's only because of the quick colors ... Also my sister makes damn sweet digital paintings and wanted some photo references of people who'd look a little like Louis if he was real. PS: She'll be opening up commissions soon, so definitely check her out for when she announces it!

The references are King Louis XIV from 'Le Roi Danse', Kitty Canary from 'Castle', and you can find Iason here and Chris Vernel here .


--Sak
Louis Despatis © Myself, Shamine A. King
Photos used purely for research purposes only
For LASALLE, College of the Arts, Singapore

... Also known as Commodore James Hunter, because he quite literally hunts down Captain Louis. You can't exactly blame the man; Louis does everything he can to excite the Commodore's temper and enjoys getting chased around. It's the attention, you see.


--Sak
All characters © Myself, Shamine A. King

Just when I thought Louis couldn't get any more glamulous ... I can't tell if this is a Talk Like A Pirate Day or a Gay Rights picture! _{In my defense I didn't think of that terrible innuendo myself!}

'Tis already the 19th where I am, so up this goes tonight. ARRRRR!!!


--Sak
Captain Louis Despatis © Myself, Shamine A. King

It's funny ... 'cuz ... Louis is gay ... and he asked for a straight answer ... _{just in case people are still confused.}

Watch how you phrase things, Commodore. Louis can get quite bored locked up in a prison cell for a while; at that point everything starts to sound funny. I imagine Louis to have quite the infectious laughter, assuming you don't completely hate his guts like James Hunter does.


--Sak
All characters © Myself, Shamine A. King

I had a lot more homework due for today but this is about as far as I got. I am so dead. Will scrap soon, but in case people thought animation was all fun and games there is still an academia aspect of our diplomas, and research is part of it. A whole lot of research. This is the tip of the iceberg of my research.

Uploading to give a sneak peek of some of the stuff I've been working on, including a potential new character and Louis's final color scheme. I haven't had time to compile the pages of sketches I've backlogged into some form of coherent dump, so here's a preview. Besides for all I know DA might tear this down for copyright infringement *shrugg*


--Sak
All characters (except for those referenced, obviously) © Myself, Shamine A. King
For LASALLE, College of the Arts, Singapore

Several people have been asking how Louis's voice sounds since he sang 'Prince Charming' in the comic Wake Up The Fort. Then recently ~Murielle made a funny piece of fanart for Louis that reminded me I'd wanted to make a miniature animatic of how he might sound. After two days and several hand-cramps later I have thirty-seconds worth of choppy images to show for it.

You can find my video here: [link]

You can find Murielle's fanart here: (it moves!!)

While Louis dresses and acts like the campiest of Rococo dandies ever to step foot out of France, he doesn't speak very effeminately unless he really wants to (which is quite often if the Commodore is around). However, I picture him having quite a higher-pitched voice regardless, with a prominent - but not overpowering - French accent.


--Sak
All characters © Myself, Shamine A. King
Audio is 'Dance With Me' by Alphaville