Getting the Gorillaz Art Style Right in AI Images
FLORA
The Gorillaz art style is the look Jamie Hewlett created for the cartoon band he formed with Damon Albarn in 1998. Before that he drew the comic strip Tank Girl, and the first Gorillaz drawings come straight out of counterculture comics. Bodies bend at hard angles. A slouch or a stoop tells you who a character is before the face does, and the eyes sit deep in shadow or go fully black. Heavy, confident ink holds flat color in grubby city shades of mustard and rust.
Gorillaz art style examples made in FLORA
Every image here shows one invented character, a wiry record-shop owner in her fifties with a silver quiff and an oversized mustard parka. All eight came from FLORA's AI image generator, and each caption is the prompt that made it.
How to prompt for Gorillaz art style
Pick an era first, because the band's look shifts with every album and Gorillaz calls each era a phase. The debut ran on flat, blocky color. Demon Days roughened the surfaces with texture and calmer palettes. By Plastic Beach in 2010 the artwork had turned into saturated, clay-like 3D with realistic shadows, and on Humanz the characters went flat again, crisper at the edges, in front of dense three-dimensional settings. Ink and marker suit the early years, while a plasticine render points at 2010.
The character comes next. Invent someone with a silhouette you could spot across a street, then give the body attitude through hunched shoulders, knees that jut and eyes kept in shade. Dirty color beats bright here. Try mustard against a sickly teal, lit by one harsh source such as a sodium streetlamp.
Prompts from the gallery
- Music video still. 2D animated music video still of a wiry record-shop owner in her fifties with a silver quiff and an oversized mustard parka, slouched in her shop doorway at night, angular elbows and knees, eyes sunk in black shadow, flat-colored figure against a detailed rain-soaked street, rust and dirty teal under a sodium streetlamp, Gorillaz art style, no text
- Comic panel. Pen and ink comic panel of a wiry record-shop owner in her fifties with a silver quiff and a mustard parka, crouched behind the counter flipping through vinyl, calligraphic nib lines with heavy pressure changes, solid blacks, whiteout highlights, steep low-angle diagonal composition, in the manner of the Gorillaz art style, no text
- Clay render. Plasticine-like 3D render of a wiry record-shop owner in her fifties with a silver quiff and a mustard parka, standing behind her shop counter beside a turntable, glossy clay surfaces, saturated acid colors, realistic soft shadows, hollow dark eyes, angular pose, Gorillaz art style, no text
Where it slips
Loose prompts can drift into clean superhero comics with smooth gradients and heroic anatomy. The inking is where the fix lives. Mat Wakeham, a friend of Hewlett's since the Tank Girl days, has written that Hewlett varies his ink pressure for weight, sharpens edges with whiteout, and lays a grain layer over digital work to copy the flaws of analog printing. Those words in a prompt often bring the grit back. A face that comes out too sweet usually needs a gaunter jaw.
Where Gorillaz art style works
Each Gorillaz album came with its own art direction, which makes release artwork the obvious home for the look. Write one scene in the style, give it your artist name and titles, and the AI album cover generator turns it into a titled album cover plus two single covers and a looping motion cover.
A virtual performer or brand mascot has to look the same in every frame, which is the job a cartoon band does for a living. Describe your character once in Character Creator and you get turnaround views and an alternate outfit, plus a name card and an idle loop to brief an animator with.
Related styles
- Comic art styles, the family Hewlett's ink comes from
- Pop art style, flat color borrowed from ads and comics
- Graffiti art style, for the street energy of the early lettering
- Tim Burton art style, spindly limbs and shadowed eyes played as gothic
- Scott Pilgrim art style, a comic about a band in lighter brush ink
FAQs
Who draws the art for Gorillaz?
Jamie Hewlett, who co-created the band, draws the characters. Mat Wakeham was a lead creative on Phase 1, and he and Hewlett founded a design studio called Zombie Flesh Eaters. Away from the band, Hewlett's work runs through Get the Freebies and Phoo Action, which Wakeham co-created.
What type of art is Gorillaz?
It began as comic-book character design and spread album by album into videos and printed books as well as models and apps, with caricatured bodies that slot each member into a pop-group stock role like the cute one or the bad boy. On stage the cartoon band became the headline act, first as enlarged animations with big backdrops and later as 3D holograms.
What is the aesthetic of Gorillaz?
Punk attitude wrapped around something cute. Crack Magazine described the early designs as marrying rebellion with cuteness, and the same piece notes that the character designs had changed little by the fourth phase. Lettering moved further, from the debut's red, graffiti-like type to plain white sans serif on Demon Days.
