One of the coolest aspects of The Climb has always been our main character’s facial tattoos.

Why did she get them? What do they mean?

The reason for their existence isn’t quite what you would expect. Regardless, they play a vital role in the story.

So they had to be awesome.

I’ve written about Alex Rotundo’s brilliant design several times before.  I had a fairly specific vision of what I wanted the designs to look like.  The tattoos were not meant to be intrusive but had to be prominent on her face.  They also had to look good on camera.  Alex achieved everything I was looking for and more.

The whole process took a little less than 2 hours to complete.  Alex started with a transfer that outlined the tattoos on Alyssa’s face.  From there she filled everything in with an alcohol based makeup so the tattoo wouldn’t smudge if it rained or Alyssa rubbed her face.  Finally, she finished the whole thing off with ‘something’ (Sorry I don’t remember what it was called) that made the final design incredibly realistic.

The results were amazing on screen.

We were filming a closeup Sunday morning and a slight gust of wind blew her hair back mid-take revealing the entire tattoo.

It looked awesome!

I’m so happy they turned out the way they did.

Check out Alex’s site here for more of her outstanding work.

Earlier tonight our make-up artist, Alex Rotundo, sent me a series of sketches of our lead actresses facial tattoos.

They were phenomenal!

Even in rough sketches I could easily picture what they would look like on Alyssa.  Things are still in the early stages but I’m extremely impressed with her designs!

It gets better…

Alex followed up her brilliant sketches with an actual skin test and I couldn’t be happier.  I can’t wait for the first official make-up test next month.

I’d like to upload some of the pictures but I’m thinking I’d rather keep them secret for now…

Click here to read more about the design process.

This week, we finally got started designing one of the most important elements of the film:

Destiny’s facial tattoos.

Without giving too much away I can tell you that the story behind the ink on her cheeks is a vital part of the story.

We’ve been lucky enough to work with Alex Rotundo on nearly all of our short films and this one is no different. Once again she brings her design eye and remarkable artistic ability to our team.

We spent a couple hours going over what I’m looking for in the end and poured over images and sketches of the overall style and significance of the tattoo.

We also spent some time with the script and found a bunch of important references we will be incorporating into the final design.

Equipped with all of that information, Alex now has time to develop a killer design for lead actress Alyssa LaPlume to have in the film.

The next step involves approving the final design and completing our first officially make-up test tentatively scheduled for mid April.

I’m so excited to see her in full make-up.

We are now getting extremely close to wrapping up pre-production on the film and rolling the cameras.

Expect about a miilion updates as the production progresses.

• Read more about The Climb here.
• Check out the film’s home page here.