Gorillaz Animations

Jamie Hewlett was known for his comic tank girl before he become known world wide with his character design for Gorillaz. Gorillaz is a cartoon British band who's music has an urban rock feel and are well known by the public. Not only are their music videos always animated but animated shorts of the band members have been made as well, which has lead to merchandise and more fans internationally.
The animation style is set in a traditional cel animation style, holding the illustrative quality of Hewletts work.

In the animated music video 'Dare', it merges both live footage and cel animation layered on top of which. This works well as the footage is minimal, Shaun Ryders head, with the animation been the main focus of movement. The video only shows one of the cartoon band members, Noodle, who's animation is smooth and considers the 12 disciplines of animation. For example, the arcs with in her limbs, anticipation before she jumps, and the use of secondary action.

In 2011, the single 'Do ya thing' held a different animation style than the previous music videos, it used CGI mixed with footage of a house, as the audience follow the cartoon vocal singer, 2-D, on his daily morning routine. The blend of the footage and the CGI works well as the lighting and textures used on the design blend with the light of the room, giving depth to the animation as well as the walk of the character which gives a sense of weight and volume, suggesting a more realistic approach to the animation compared to the previous cel animation. The software used to create this could be Maya, which is popular for its 3-D animating qualities.
The characters look different through the realistic approach that the animation has gone for, however the characteristics of the cartoon band are still shown and the audience can immediately tell who the characters are. With the CGI used, I would imagine that the use of motion capture technology would have been used to be able to make the movement and height of the characters appear realistic, and they could have also used animatronic like arms or machines in the first scene of the video with 2-D tossing and turning in his bed.
The animation was made by Passion Pictures and Jamie Hewlett, Animation directors being Arnaud & Jerome, who have created other animations for Riot Games, Coca Cola and MTV.
The video also serves as a promotion for the new Gorillaz line of Converse shoes, where the product is shown near the end as Murdoc hits 2-D with one of the Converse.