JAMILLAH AND ALADDIN

Our team initially set about getting under the skin of the Jamillah and Aladdin brand, developing an understanding of the characters and their unique personalities by watching clips of the show and reading through the engaging script written by Kindle Entertainment.

One of our talented artists started by developing an original style tailored to the brand and the audience, then assembled an art bible for an easy iteration & approval process. This included character studies, environments, the colour palette and an-depth breakdown of how the art style works to cleanly communicate personality throughout, complete with pose and expression boards.

Some of our previous projects had given us a good understanding of the capabilities of the engine being used for the comic. With early drafts of the script, we were able to recommend how these engine capabilities could manifest themselves in enjoyable interactions that would both fit within the structure of the script and the IP, but would also enhance and progress the storyline. We went through these proposals with our project partners, to ensure everything was still within their parameters, before progressing to prototype stage.

Accessibility was important to us and our clients, so we worked hard in collaboration with the BBC’s UX team to ensure that the motion comic was fully accessible to assistive technologies, supporting single-switch device users, as well as users of mouse, keyboard and touch screen devices.

“The art style was initially going to be a rotoscope type effect, but after researching and watching the show, I found the characters to be so recognisable and charismatic that I thought more had to be done to capture their youthful cheekiness and individual personalities.

Each character had such an interesting, unique persona and mannerisms that I knew I had to develop a style that was simple at first glance, so that these features could be prioritised. I started by gathering reference and then jumped right into the concept stage.

After some trial and error, I built up a set of rules for facial and body features with each of the character’s personas in mind.

I then addressed each issue as it came up, often because of a design choice I had just made. In the end, I had a well-rounded style that was flexible and charming enough to do the show justice.

The project was hugely enjoyable to be a part of, and offered a great deal of freedom for experimentation and expression. I think the result is original and exciting, and can be enjoyed by an audience of varied ages, but I may be biased!