With Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Mirrormask coming out on DVD in the last few weeks and the first pictures of next year’s Dark Crystal sequel The Power of the Dark Crystal hitting the internet, puppets, muppets and stop-motion animation are in the air…or at least in the air in my head! In that same spirit today’s Friday Favorite features Red Nose Studio.
[Editor’s Note: just a reminder that Friday Favorites features a site from my Favorites file…in case you forgot, or cared, or wanted to know, or could care less…]
Chris Sickels is the creator behind Red Nose Studio. Chris is an illustrator, but a somewhat unconventional illustrator in that his illustrations are created three dimensionally. Among his clients are The New York Times, Village Voice, Spike TV, the L.A. Times, and H.O.W. Design. It was through the H.O.W. Design magazine that I discovered Chris Sickels’ work and a more thorough article about Chris Sickels can be found on their website. His work has won several awards and it is easy to see why as it is very unique and creative. Because his creations actually exist and are then photographed there is a depth, texture, and “realness” that just cannot be duplicated with traditional two dimensional media. I get excited by many and varied styles of art and creativity and the Red Studios work is really phenomenal.
(Editorial picture entitled Failure of US Intelligence)
Chris creates sets and puppets from a wide variety of materials including wire, fabric, cardboard, wood, minitatures and found objects. Chris Sickels’ puppets are slightly eerie, and oddly whimsical, creations that have an air of the familiar about them. Chris molds the puppet heads from sculpey, fires them in the oven, and then paints them to give them their unique and charming personality. The creatures of Red Nose Studio vary in size often depending on what materials Chris starts with. He may find some object that he wants in the set and will then build everything to scale around that object.
(Cover to The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti)
A visit to the Red Nose Studio site will not only reward you with several pictures of Chris’s memorable creations but will give you the opportunity to see his experimentation with stop-motion animation. The four shorts are raw, and weird, but show a great deal of potential. To me Chris Sickels’ work cries out for the stop-motion animation treatment and I am glad to see that he is traveling down that road.
I am very impressed with the work of Chris Sickels. His creations have the look and feel of old friends and I have no doubt if I visited his studio that I would want one of these little guys to follow me home. I will continue to keep regular tabs on the Red Nose Studio site in the hopes of seeing more fun films and more great creations by Chris Sickels.
(The lighting and sense of discovery in this one are fantastic!)
Visit his site, look at the pictures, watch the short films and join me in marveling at the unique talent of Chris Sickels.
