Jamie Hewlett's work is going to appear on this blog a lot, sorry but he is one of my favourite artists. And to me it doesn't get better than his work on the band Gorillaz. Here I'm going to talk about the most recent music video he directed for the band before they went on a massive, unbearably long hiatus. I've loved this band for around ten years now and in that time its been amazing to watch something like this evolve and grow. The characters have changed. Rare in animations the characters have aged with the time as have their creators.
(Gorillaz band member Noodle age ten to 20)
Not only have the characters changed in their looks to keep things fresh and interesting but so has the animation style. We're now at the point, around Phase 3 where the characters are rendered in 3D CGI. At first I didn't like the style. I was annoyed because I felt that everything was turning 3D and traditional animation was dying out so it was nice that in 2010 a massively successful band like Gorillaz still animated in good old 2D. To me it felt like trying to appease fans instead of doing their own thing.
Eventually I grew to like the style and feel that it particularly works in this video set in the band's new house. To me what I feel the charm is of Gorillaz and why to this day they are so popluar is not just the music, but how these characters co-exist in their own slightly surreal universe in the music industry. They are slightly separate but kind of always want to be accepted.
To me now that these band members look more life-like they fit in a tiny bit more with the real world but still keep their insane cartoony-ness. E.G. 2D does have a more solid look and his movements are less rigid, it actually feels like if you touched him it would be more like touching a person than a piece of paper. But don't get me wrong, his eyes are still massive black circles.
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