Steve LeVine
Founder & CEO
THE MAGIC OF BRINGING A CHARACTER TO LIFE
We were fascinated with the magic of 3D animation in the traditions of puppetry and animatronics. From the flickering fire dance of ancient cave paintings, to the most sophisticated amusement park attractions, the ineffable spark of life captivated our imagination. But we thought perhaps we could improve on the state of the art.
WHAT EXACTLY IS ORBICULARIS SYSTEMS BUILDING?
Our goal is to refine and simplify the design and manufacture of truly lifelike, credibly human creatures for puppeteers, roboticists, animators and home collectors, hobbyists and makers. The menagerie starts with a few hand-sculpted characters: The Storyteller, The Frog Man and The Muse. We have several products in development, starting with a manually activated, emotionally expressive hand puppet, suitable for any child old enough to hold a Barbie doll or action figure. The smaller versions will optionally be available in kit form, suitable for STEAM learners, ready for hacking and modding according to your imagination.
We also hope to release a fully articulate adult-sized, speaking animatronic robot head with subtle expressiveness and speech capacity, hopefully legible enough to lip read.
OUR INSPIRATION
Marionettes have been part of our founder's family lore for eighty years. Steve LeVine's father was a physician and maker (before the term existed) who started creating puppet heads before his sons were born. Steve and his brother Philip in turn made their own characters in their father's memory starting in the early 1980s. Orbicularis Systems was founded in Steve's studio in January 2024 after he retired from a career in emergency medicine and medical informatics.
- Don and Philip LeVineSteve's father and brother, marionette makers
- Leonardo da VinciAnatomy as engineering
- Disney StudiosThe illusion of life
- Paul EkmanThe grammar of expression
ORBICULARIS OCULI / ORBICULARIS ORIS
Orbicularis Systems derives its name from the muscles of the face that are key in communicating emotional states to human observers. The orbicularis oculi encircle the eyes, and the orbicularis oris comprises the main mouth muscle. But we couldn't stop there, as the full range of emotion also engages the forehead, nose, cheeks, tongue and chin.
These muscles are delicate and complex, and they interact in ways unlike others in the body: they connect not just to bones, but also to the skin and to each other. That is very hard to replicate with motorized mechanisms. So rather than trying to move the surface of the skin, we focused on moving the underlying masses in a way that is more faithful to the original design.
We take great care in constructing each component. Our eyeballs are made with a unique method and are individually hand painted, with a liveliness that has to be seen in natural light to be fully appreciated. We use skin safe silicone skins, silk controls, and 3D printed scaffolds and skulls.
WHO WE ARE
Orbicularis Systems is a small San Francisco Bay Area startup focusing on highly expressive puppetronic characters. While we're not the first animators to try to make lively, programmable, expressive speaking heads, we believe our approach to developing them is novel. We hew closely to nature's exquisite design rather than resorting to traditional animatronic mechanisms.
The Architects
Emilio Lopez
3D Designer
Evan Sievers
Prototyping & Materials
Dom Finetti
Marketing & Strategy
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