Final Project - Puppet - Giovanni

Giovanni is the proprietor of the speakeasy and mentor to the narrator. As the film progresses he becomes increasingly sadistic and violent, traits he has had to adapt to in order to remain at the top of the Chicago bootlegging racket. His head has two sets of teeth, top and bottom (something that no other character has) this is for his 'death' scene, when he is institutionalised, lobotomised and put in a padded cell, where he will scream manically at the camera.

 At this stage, I was still experimenting with different armature styles, and as a result, his head has a very large balsa core, I didn't take this technique forward, as it made his head too large (but very light).

 This was the point where I had to modify the shape of the balsa core, as it was too wide at the bottom, I also changed his nose

 At this stage, I was sculpting Giovanni (at the time named Anton for some reason) as his crazy self in order to get a feel of how his teeth and jaw would work in regards to his screaming motion.

 Giovanni's skin colour is somewhat experimental, at this point I was running out of flesh tone plasticine and had to make my own, and hadn't figured out the right mix of colours (i forgot the yellow) to create the right effect. From this (failed) experiment I managed to get the correct mix (40% white, 50% pink and 10% yellow) and used it from then on. As a result, Giovanni is the only character with this skin colour. I know the film is going to be in black and white, but if I haven't mentioned it already, the entire film is also a model-making portfolio, so the colours are very important. Even if you won't see them. I will so it's OK. Also i'll be splicing bits of this film into my showreel, they'll be in colour.

 His gloves have been glossed, and as a result may limit how much they can move, which was a slight oversight on my part.

 I have never sculpted bare feet before so this was an interesting challenge. I'm quite happy with the way they turned out, but they won't be in the film for very long.

 Giovanni's 'crazy legs', which will be re used as Paddy's 'execution legs' even though the skin colour is slightly different, it will be in black and white so this won't be a problem.

Test shot of Giovanni's crazy puppet on set. The padded cell is made out of canvas panels in order to give it an 'old timey' feel. The set is not properly aligned in this shot and will look better in the final ones. The straight jacket is glossed to make it shiny, and as it won't move, the gloss won't peel off.