The Art Of Stephen Kulp

The Art Of Stephen Kulp Stephen Kulp is a Character Designer, Concept Artist and Illustrator based in Cape Town, South Africa. Stephen is based in Cape Town, South Africa

He specializes in character design, specifically the development and designing of 2D concepts. Stephen Kulp is a Concept Artist specializing in Illustration, Digital Painting, Caricature and Character Design.

Even giants needs dental care. Some notes on Goliaths teeth creation. His head and jaw has a unique shape and we needed ...
08/05/2026

Even giants needs dental care.

Some notes on Goliaths teeth creation. His head and jaw has a unique shape and we needed to bear in mind that the teeth needed to fit correctly to avoid the risk of it feeling awkward or "wrong". It was my job to paint these teeth in and supply some notes to the 3D team on how they would look, fit and function. The team nailed it. 👏

Have a real happy Friday and stay tuned for more.






Hey everyone!Quick pop in, continuing on from the previous post. Goliath work in progress images and notes and I collab...
07/05/2026

Hey everyone!

Quick pop in, continuing on from the previous post. Goliath work in progress images and notes and I collaborated on during production of the David movie.

The notes on Goliath were so minimal simply because Ryan had hit the character out of the park very early on already from the drawings supplied. Amazing work and skill 👏. Well done Ryan

I heard the film released in Spain a few days ago and was so well received. Great news and as always congrats to all who was involved on the film.

Have a great day further!






Hi friends.Here is the approved full body turnaround of Goliath for the modelling team. First time ever having to work w...
30/04/2026

Hi friends.

Here is the approved full body turnaround of Goliath for the modelling team. First time ever having to work with 6 fingers and 6 toes 😜.

Thanks to Daniel Rodriguez .prusiano for helping on this too, I remember the note of making him taller and narrowing the waist as he was stockier before. Much prefer the more athletic vertical stretch we ended up with.

Have a great day further!






Following on from the previous post, a bit more technical, this is just a pass with some notes on key elements we needed...
27/04/2026

Following on from the previous post, a bit more technical, this is just a pass with some notes on key elements we needed to pay special attention to, so that we could really nail his look in 3D.






Good morning lovely people. Amidst all the busyness , I found a gap to continue to share some work I had the privilege o...
24/04/2026

Good morning lovely people.

Amidst all the busyness , I found a gap to continue to share some work I had the privilege of touching on for the David movie.

In this case I was assigned the task to create the turnaround of the amazing concept done by the very talented .

It was a real fun challenge figuring out what the front and profile could be of such an interesting face.

Thanks to the leadership at Sunrise Animation Studios for trusting me with the task of making Goliath production ready especially .percy, but allow me to pause here and say that this character was a massive (excuse the pun) team effort of which we all drew inspiration and built ontop of one anothers work to get to where we ultimately did.

did some real heavy lifting (excuse the pun) on Goliath creating some iconic moment pieces and developing alot of his character alongside the very clear and confident direction from Production Designer and Art Director . There are more people I'll be mentioning too, relevant to the various phases.

I will be sharing some more of the thoughts / notes on the head later, as well as the body turnaround etc.

We hope you like it.

Have a great day further! See you later ☀🙏






Hi friends and family. I had the awesome opportunity to work on some Goliath designs for the David movie. Here are some ...
24/03/2026

Hi friends and family.

I had the awesome opportunity to work on some Goliath designs for the David movie.

Here are some very early, I believe 2019 or so designs, just a handful of a myriad of loose and rough sketches. At this point there was no definitive design for him yet, and we were still in the process of finding him. I remember giving feedback and direction during this phase as well as Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham the directors. Also want to mention who gave input, inspired and influenced some of the gesture , proportions and attitudes etc. Honestly Goliath was a huge team effort at every step.

Hope you like it.

Have a great day further






It’s the weekend here in the beautiful city of Cape Town, and it’s bright and lovely outside. What to do, what to do? 😄I...
13/03/2026

It’s the weekend here in the beautiful city of Cape Town, and it’s bright and lovely outside. What to do, what to do? 😄

I’m thinking a braai might be in order. Maybe a masala steak sandwich, and some video games with the wife and kids… who knows? The opportunities are endless. 🍕🌭🌶🎮🕹👪

Following this morning’s post, I thought I’d share some close-ups of the design options I did for the character Michal during the development phase of the David movie. She didn’t make it into the final film, but for the reasons behind that we happily trust Sunrise Animation Studios and their talented directors and story team. 🙏

It was a real privilege to work on these. Thank you.

I know I said I’d reveal which one they chose in this post, but I’ve got another post coming soon—and I promise I’ll share it there. 😜

Thanks for all the likes, comments, and reactions. It’s always great hearing from you all.

Hey friends and family, happy Friday! 🥳Here are the options of Michal that had a treatment done on outift and colour etc...
13/03/2026

Hey friends and family, happy Friday! 🥳

Here are the options of Michal that had a treatment done on outift and colour etc. It kind of felt like I was creating a "beauty pagent" and the directors were the "judges" having to choose the one for David. Quite fun.

Thanks to all of you for the feedback on the last post, its quite inspiring to see the interaction and positive reactions to her as a character. She was definitely a favourite part of the process for me.

Not sure if anyone could tell, but number 6 actually became Ahinoam. I'll post some close ups later and reveal which one was selected for Michal tonight.

Have a great day further! See you later ☀🙏






Good morning 🙏☀During the development of the David movie, the character Michal was actually part of the story at one poi...
12/03/2026

Good morning 🙏☀

During the development of the David movie, the character Michal was actually part of the story at one point. Michal is Saul's daughter and David's wife in the Bible and she was to be his love interest and wife in this one too as far as I recall before the story changed and she was ultimately removed.

I had the fun and awesome privilege of being tasked to conceptualize her design. Here are some quick loose sketches I presented to the directors. An option was chosen which I'll share in the next post.

Special shoutout to ,.percy and director Brent Dawes who were also part of the journey creating her, briefing me and collaborating.






Good afternoon folks.Hoping you're all doing great. Thanks for following along on this journey. I am very grateful for t...
05/03/2026

Good afternoon folks.

Hoping you're all doing great. Thanks for following along on this journey. I am very grateful for the recent interactions, likes, comments and follows I have been receiving. Its been awesome. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Keeping on with the posts on "David", as I've wrapped up on sharing some work I did on Saul, I'm excited to move onto sharing the approved concept of Ahinoam that I had the privilege of designing. Ahinoam is Saul's wife and Jonathan's mother. Her development was brief, as we needed to get her into the pipeline quite quickly. She was actually born from a design that was re-used, and initially created as "Michal" David's love interest (and wife eventually). Saul's daughter. More on this later...

For now here it is, Saul is a big powerful man, and I had in mind to create a suitable wife, bold, strong and royal. I also had Jonathan in the back of my mind as her son, just to influence even if just a small bit that they are related, but not copied. I hope you enjoy it.






Good morning ☀️This would be the last post on King Saul for now. After and I finished up on the hair, we had some time ...
24/02/2026

Good morning ☀️

This would be the last post on King Saul for now. After and I finished up on the hair, we had some time to work on the face and I remember that I felt like the 3D could reflect the 2D artwork even closer , so we went for it.

Saul was specifically mentioned in the bible as being "a handsome young man" and that there "was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he" in 1 Samuel 9:2. That was my launching point to offer the paintover as the updated way forward, just finessing and tweaking some of the facial features to reflect this. Thanks to art director and production designer for trusting the vision and .percy for supporting as we moved it along. Special mention to who was leading the groom team. I remember her also on a call helping me with that "cows lick" and the way I had planned it, giving me confidence that it would be possible when it came to groom which was just so awesome to know early on already. Thanks Fernanda, you are an amazing artist and lead.❤🙏 You guys did an absolute phenomenal job on this characters hair.

Saul looked amazing and commanded quite a presence in the final film. Bravo to all who touched on him, from modelling, to look, groom, animation, compositing, edit and even sound. Saul was absolutely powerful, at times very relatable and memorable.

Thanks for sharing your time on this series of posts on Saul.

Looking forward to delving back into 2D land and prepping some concept work to share with you in upcoming days.

Have a great day further.

Original concept of Saul by and .






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