I just found out that one of my favorite character actors, Kumar Pallana has died. He was 94. Pallana was in a number of Wes Anderson films in comedic side-character roles. When I first saw him in Bottle Rocket, I assumed that he must have been some kind of family friend of Wes Anderson that he thought was funny and put him in a movie. He just didn't seem trained. I recently learned that Kumar was a seasoned actor and vaudeville comic. According to Wikipedia, he was also on the Mickey Mouse Club.
In 2011, I was asked to contribute a piece of artwork to Spoke Art's "Bad Dads" show, a tribute to the films of Wes Anderson. I knew immediately that I wanted to draw Kumar from him role in the film "Bottle Rocket".
Kumar in "Bottle Rocket"
Here's a little animation that shows the progress of drawing Kumar's face for the "Bad Dads" show print. His expression is very subtle and was a little tricky to capture.
The final artwork was created mostly in Adobe Illustrator. I've found that, while Illustrator is great for graphic work with solid shapes, it's not always easy for skin tones and softer elements. For this piece I used a half-tone effect to get the graphic-ness that I wanted but a more skin-like texture on the face.
