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here is the last part of REGIS LOISEL’S visual development work for disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc / regis loisel

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and some more of REGIS LOISEL’S visual development artwork for disney’s MULAN

© disney enterprises, inc / regis loisel

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now as promised more of REGIS LOISEL’S visual development designs for disney’s MULAN

© disney enterprises, inc / regis loisel

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before I am gonna show more of REGIS LOISEL’S designs he did for disney’s MULAN, some more of his stunning artwork in his comic strip series PETER PAN. he wrote the story, came up with the layout, did all the artwork (incl.lettering) and colored everything. the panels read like a film, the staging is flawless, not too talk about the composition and the use of textures in the backgrounds.

© regis loisel / editions vents d’ouest

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for everybody who is not familiar with REGIS LOISEL’S comic-strip work I am posting some pages, sketch-page and final color-page, as well as some character designs from his PETER PAN comic-strip version. the six-volume series was published in france between 1990 and 2004 by EDITIONS VENTS D’OUEST ( http://www.ventsdouest.com ). the titles of the series are – LONDRES, OPIKANOBA, TEMPETE, MAINS ROUGES, CROCHET and DESTINS. next will be more of REGIS’ MULAN designs.

© regis loisel / editions vents d’ouest

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as far as I remember it was sometime in 1995 during the preproduction of MULAN when my producer at disney PAM COATS asked for my advice about possible illustrators or comic-strip artists who might be willing to work with us for a short time. the more diverse in style, the better. the first name that came to my mind was REGIS LOISEL, next to MOEBIUS one of the most influental french comic-strip artists. after his stunning four volume series LA QUETE DE L’OISEAU DU TEMPS he had started his version of PETER PAN that promised to be even better. I admired the worlds he created, beautifully designed environments as well as very unusual character-design. and – what I liked the most – he was as much away from disney as you could imagine! that’s why I did not really believe he would say yes. finally I talked to him on the phone, he tried to speak a bit english and I tried to remember all my half-forgotten french. somehow it was a good conversation because he agreed to come to L.A. for two weeks to work with us.

these two weeks I will not forget, we spent a lot of time together. next to working with him in my office I showed him L.A. and some of the neighborhood. and we had great dinners and a lot of wine. my french improved and REGIS even learned to comunicate with the other artists in english. he was the nicest guy and what an artist! anyway – we stayed in touch for a while afterwards until he moved to canada and I left disney. his series PETER PAN became a six volume MASTERPIECE. as soon as he had finished a new book he sent me a copy together with a beautiful sketch, treasures in my collection. recently I found copies of the MULAN-designs he had done during the two weeks he stayed with us and I am planning to post some of them. in a way his designs are very similar to ALEX NINO’S work, but he added a lot more story in his sketches, came up with great gags and ideas I wish we had included in our film.

© disney enterprises, inc / regis loisel

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that’s how MUSHU looked like around mid 1995. CHEN-YI CHENG came up with that version. as you can see the design is very much influenced by chinese dragon pictures and sculptures, the cartoony touch is missing. disney had given me the opportunity to invite comic strip artists from all over the world, artists who could give us different ideas about the look of the film MULAN. REGIS LOISEL was the first comic strip ‘giant’ I invited. you can see his designs in some of my earlier posts. another artist who joined us for 2 weeks was vietnamese born belgian comic strip artist and painter VINH KHOA. and in summer 1995 my former partner on the ALFRED J.KWAK comic strip and tv-series, HARALD SIEPERMANN, came to L.A. for a few weeks. harald concentrated on MUSHU, and as you can see below, added the missing cartoony touch to the character.

© disney enterprises, inc