At the start of 2017, a message popped up in my inbox; it was Lesley Quist, Creative Director over at Spinnin Records.
He is working with an artist, whom most people know by his stage name Curbi and was in the process of rebranding him.
Curbi had a vibrant flat-shaded 3D style that he outgrew over the years, and as a growing artist, he knew it was time to mature his brand.
Evolving a brand of an artist can be necessary for growth.
Lesley had developed a general concept of how he wanted to evolve the artist brand, and this is something we worked out in the weeks to follow.
So the plan that we came up with was that of letting of the old avatar through evolving him over several stages into a new, more menacing character, to show his fans this transition quite literally.
Getting the right team in place to get the job done.
Before starting this project, I created a mood board, a storyboard, and an animatic to make sure everybody was on board with the plans.
Within the project timeline of four weeks, I took on the more technical roles at the end of the pipeline.
Doing all the visual effects, particles, shader building, look development, rendering, and compositing of the shots.
Is getting your final feedback from the YouTube comments rewarding?
It was clear from the beginning that the project needed to symbolize the transition from a vibrant 3D style, to a mature, darker style and end in the real world.
The ending in the live-action footage of Tokyo was needed to pave the way for future content, where the focus would be more on video and typographic edits, which are less labor-intensive.
It was exciting to see what his fans would think of the newly created brand style, and luckily the YouTube gods were on our side.
The project was a great success, currently pushing over the two million views on YouTube alone, and his fans are loving the rebranding and the overall gaming look of the characters.