Jamie Hewitt - Gorillaz

• ‘...thrash out themes and ideas…inform his first drawings for the campaign, which go to a team of writers who work out structuring and expanding the story…new sketches, artworks, storyboards, video ideas, merchandise, etc.’

• ‘For each album he decides on a brand new illustration style…he spends the entire album trying to master that style.’

• ‘Monkeys and apes haunt his characters, whether it's their bulging noses, or protruding mouths. He sees things with a sharp eye, both in the jagged and angular shape of teeth, gingers and joints, but also in the voguish way his characters are dressed.’

• ‘His biggest inf;uemce to this day is the 1950s and 60s…Mad Magazine…Normal Rockwell.’  

Studio Killers:

• ‘...electropop virtual band made up of four animated characters: vocalist and designer Cherry, keyboardist Goldie Foxx, DJ Dyna Minx and manager Bipolar Bear.’

• ‘...audio-visual collective…’

• ‘Cherry is credited as the artist for the band, however the real designer and animator of the characters is Eliza Jappinen.’

Originally inspired by Gorillaz, I looked at creating a humanoid/animal character, but instead utilising the Y3K and more futuristic editorial design research/inspiration I had already done, I decided to create an alienistic character, with more exaggerated features. I also had cool ideas about them having more things/colour changing elements that could create interesting visuals in a music video setting.

For the design elements of the character, I am looking at doing exaggerated cheekbones, large head/forehead, large eyes/eye area, with potentially a third eye, possibly antennas, and unusual ears.

I am also considering a more ‘60s’ inspired alien, multicoloured with big hair and retro space outfits.

I have considered extra arms/legs but I think extra legs will be too ‘arachnid’ like, and I am concerned extra arms will become difficult should I choose to animate any elements.

My first character design had an alien woman (based off my first artist), with an enlarged neurocranium, larger cheekbones, three big eyes, pointy, almost ’elven’ ears, smaller lower face and antenna. Originally, making the skin a pink colour and the hair (kept from the original design), a light blue.

The design changes came from my research into different hair ideas, I originally looked into a lot of drag wigs with exaggerated and complicated designs. But in the end I decided this would be very difficult to consistently illustrate and would be very time consuming, as well as likely being impractical for my character.

One of my ideas was about allowing my character to have ‘morphing’ or ‘colour changing’ features, especially in her hair, for example, having it float and move on its own, change length, colour, etc.

Because of that idea, I looked at having my character's hair and ponytails, giving me all the ‘morphing’ freedom, well not distorting the view of her face. But I found free-flowing hair very demanding and too dynamic to consistently draw in enough detail. I also felt it was too ‘normal’ and ‘human’.

I looked into drawing a plait or multiple plaits in place of the ponytail hair, but found the plants themselves almost too demanding without being dynamic or interesting enough. I researched different types of braids, and then ended up choosing to draw ‘bubble braids’. I felt that these were not too demanding to draw while being dynamic and interesting. I liked the idea of ‘morphing’ the bubble sizes and like the futuristic and ‘alien’ aesthetic of the hair. I gave my character three braids, two at the front and one of the back, so the braids will always be seen, without their being too many.

I also switched the colours so her hair was pink and skin was light blue, but it’s likely these colours will change as a part of the character. I also gave the character light pink eyes and pupils with a pink/white iris. I really like the ‘inverted’ kind of look with the eyes and feel like it stops her from looking too ‘human’.

I struggled a lot while looking into different patterns and textures for my character skin. I struggled to find something that I could create a re-create consistently, that wasn’t too ‘animalistic’, overly difficult or uninteresting. While researching, the Maison Margiela spring/summer 2024 show came up. This show had Pat McGrath care a glass/porcelain look on all the models. We had briefly spoken about this in class and I wanted to explore it as a potential ‘skin detail’ in my research.

The glass skin was something I could create in 3D and then either render itself or reference for illustration.

This look could also be recreated in 3D if I choose to render any pieces, and could be combined with a glass effect, giving me both options.

I decided to use Blender for this, as it was widely used, free and I had used it in the past. At first I found it difficult, but once I better understood it and had more practice, it was great to begin creating my character. I also experimented with Blenders set materials, giving the character some ‘glossy’ looking skin. This look alone I already liked so I am excited to continue working on the model. I hope to add her antennae, hair, eyes and body soon. Hopefully adding clothes, jewellery and more in the future.

In the upcoming week I plan on creating my proposal slideshow, finishing some more of the blender model and having some clothing illustrations.

Alongside these projects I focused on a couple main elements of my FMP, one of which being my character's outfits. I had a number of ideas that I sketched out, but two main ideas I wanted to design. 

My other outfit idea was a dress. I think dresses are never held down to a specific style/era and are a fantastic baseline to be styled in any way. The top of the dress would be a figure hugging bodysuit, with the skirt protruding around the hips.

Next week my plans are prioritised on my essay plan, but I intend to work further on my model, fixing her clothes and hair, then exploring/furthering eyes, makeup, jewellery, etc, if I have time.

Unfortunately, with personal stuff I didn’t get as much done as I hoped to, my main aims were to re-create the dress and hair; I was only able to do the dress.

The process of re-creating the dress was much more complicated and time-consuming than I expected. I followed a number of video tutorials and created a dress by sewing multiple planes together. I had to restart multiple times and spent a majority of the week working and editing it, most of my time was on small tweaks.

Next week I will not have much time as I am not home for multiple days. But I can work on my essay and plan illustrations for makeup, jewellery and worldbuilding in that time. I do plan on finishing the dress during the week too, as well as doing the hair, which I hope will not take as long.

Next week I plan on creating an entire model for the character in procreate, drawn out in much more detail with each element (different hair, clothes, jewellery, etc), as a kind of ‘dress up doll’. I also plan on continuing my hair work in blender and doing some research and experimenting with different artists from my summer work.

I was very pleased with the outcome of my experimentation, my main struggle was with the eyes, as my character does not have white irises, I think it looks very strange. I did really like the shading style and plan on further using it in future illustrations, alongside more saturated colours, which is a must.

My illustration did not feature any additional elements, as that is something I will consider adding in future illustrations. But I did experiment with the heavy contrasts and more striking features in my character, I do think I will use these elements in the future when illustrating my character.

I was pleased with my illustration, I definitely like the contrasts and bright colours, especially the background. The illustration definitely feels more animated and alive, which I will take inspiration from for my character, but the cartoonish style was a bit too unrealistic. 

This week I had a number of main aims to complete. I wanted to work on my character's facial realism, by adding skin details and eyelashes to the model, and create her jewellery. I also wanted to continue my research and practice with other artists, but I was not able to do that this week.

Creating the head piece was not as simple as I had hoped, especially making it look metallic and realistic. As a part of the jewellery for the model I also added a nose piece, mimicking a nasallang or double nostril piercing, but as a much longer, ‘plate’ like nose piece. Overall,I was really happy with how they came out. I think they add a lot of ‘other-worldly’ characteristics, especially with the headpiece sitting under the chin and hair. 

(Some of the work I have done will not have images for the time being as I cannot currently render them. When I render the images I will add them.)

While working on my character, I decided that I was finding the hair incredibly hard to work with, I wanted to have hair that could be animated, but it would often take me a long time to move the current hair, which is no longer in the original style, so it looked as natural as possible.

Because of the issues I was having, I am in the process of looking at pre-existing models I could use instead, I plan to do this in the hopes to have a better hair style I feel suits my character and style much more, while also allowing me to utilise more of my time to other elements of the 3D model and illustration.

While the hair I end up using for my model would not be designed by me, I will still use the skills and knowledge I now have to edit, style and colour it.

I recreated the dress model as one piece of cloth, and plan to add the edits and details in the next week.

Using this model I created two versions, one with a bun and one with a ponytail.

This week i was able to add the main torso area of details, I am very happy with the effects the glowing bands give off. I think they really add to the futuristic aesthetic.

During this experimenting period I also added a 'lip gloss' to the model to give her face more definition.

I need to update the lip gloss so it doesn't look as thick, and if I want to continue my idea of backlighting, I will need to alter the hair model so it is not as geometric as it currently is, I did try adding smoothing modifiers, but I did not get the desired effect.

Whilst looking at the BSL dictionary, a word I really liked was 'carbon'. It is signed as simply creating a 'C' shape with your thumb and index finger, I think this could make a great element in my cover/experiments for my cover as it is simple and inconspicuous, but still interesting.

Carbon as an element is found in all living things, and one of its common forms being diamond, I think matches with the bright, blue and white themes I have in the model.

This word may not be what I stick with using, but I wanted to utilise the idea when making the hand, so I can see how it would look.

The hand model I used was 'Rigged hand' by 'Elena FF' on SketchFab.

The nails are metallic and reflective, but as this was in a new file, the reflections are not clear (as there is nothing to reflect), so I have also added an unrendered image so it can be seen.

I also plan on making the alterations to the lip gloss and hair.

I considered the idea of animating it myself, illustrating each frame. But creating an animation like this without being able to rotoscope any elements, especially the hair, would have been incredibly difficult, and time consuming. I also felt disappointed at the idea of my characters face not being visible in the animation.

I created a short video (solid, pre-rendered) of one idea I have to add to the set of clips.

My main aims were to continue work on my short animations, in the hopes of picking out some definite clips that I can then workshop and process to use and animate, this included moving clothing, etc. I also aimed to have a better established idea of the vinyl layout, including different sides and have spoken to companies to get a good plan for printing the vinyls. In addition to these I also wanted to continue working on my website and work on the D&AD project, which was due on Thursday 20th March.

I did not have time to begin looking into artist names or putting the title onto the cover, but plan to do so next week.

I created a simple layout so I could visualise the new jacket design, including both the main and special edition covers (although I plan to have the colours be different for the special edition cover).

I got feedback about my website being too 'buttony' and not experimental enough. I have not finished the changes I would like to make yet, but have currently made it look less blocky, added more interesting typefaces and improved the layout.

Because of this I changed my plans, the animated video for Spotify Canvas will no longer be animated, and instead I will create an alternative cover to use on either the front of the CD case, or the back of the vinyl, that is an illustrated collage of different poses. I will also alter the video I have planned, and I hope to create a much more simplified version that I can confidently render and edit.

The change for the video mainly came from the fact that rendering takes significantly longer than I expected and I do not believe I will have time to create the video to the quality I would like to.

The images were far from perfect and not intended to be 'well done', but they acted as a solid reference and also gave me an opportunity to see the layout and make any changes I wanted to before illustrating, especially changes based on the colour layout, which I could not really see during the thumbnailing part.

The final step in the process for the vinyl covers was to finalise the design and fully render it. After doing so, I made any edits in photoshop I wanted to and added the artists name ‘Delphi’, from the constellation ‘Delphinus’. I finalised both the main and special edition covers, along with their respective back covers.

I designed the specific vinyl stickers for both the main and special edition covers. Both based their covers, with additional detailing covering scientific information about the carbon element, that I felt would add an interesting visual and callback to the albums title.

The vinyls turned out exactly how I hoped they would, the cover art reflected the aesthetic I was aiming for, whilst being a strong and visually striking design. Once printed, the covers still look fantastic, with the print quality and colour reflecting its original design. Next week I will put the stickers on the fake vinyls I got and begin to organise the cases.

• Finish off by sticking the center stickers on my vinyls.

• Finish my illustration, print it out, stick it and finish off my CD cover.

• Finish my animation and its overlay.

• Post to instagram.

• Finish my FMP portfolio.

I added a ‘canvas’ overlay for one version, and a ‘rainbow grain’ overlay for another. I planned to make the choice for the CD cover when they were printed.

Overall I am very happy with the illustration. Should I have had more time I would have liked to make a larger, more detailed version on Photoshop, but for what I was able to do, I am very happy.

I ended up choosing the ‘grain’ design, as it came out clearer when printing. While the print wasn’t a perfect rendition of the colours I had originally designed the cover with (simply due to my printer), it was very close, and I felt it fit perfectly with the aesthetic was aiming for. The illustration felt abstract against the rendered cover of the vinyl and digital cover designs, giving this specific piece of media its own ‘flair’ and unique style.

The overlayed grain also made the cover feel tactile, and whilst I didn’t end up using the canvas option, the cover does look like it is on a textured material, giving it a ‘painted on’ feel.

It was very difficult to take a photo of the CD cover in its case without glare, so I also took photos of the two covers without CD cases.

I was very happy with how the animation turned out, while not as complex as my original plans, I believe it follows much closer to how a majority of Spotify canvas’ look.