CHARACTER DESIGN - “La Belle Evangeliste”

A great while ago the Gorillaz website held a competition for artists to register an account with them and use a four-colour, three-brush drawing interface to craft a design for “The Evangelist”, a virtuous counterpart to their villainous character “The Boogeyman”. It was divided into four rounds, wherein competitors could submit their designs and then vote on them.

Unfortunately, the site’s programmers failed to account for the use of Private Browsing, and hence several CHEATERS(!) spent ages and ages voting for their horribly inferior designs into the semi-finals. My entry, alas, did not make it into the ranks of the final sketches to be re-drawn by Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett, but it’s comforting to know that he chose a rather fantastic entry, and gave it a spectacular redesign.

In keeping with the seaside theme of the Gorillaz’ direction in that year, I paired my character - “La Belle Evangeliste” - with sea creatures such as a Sea Dragon and a humongous Turtle. Her helmet and chosen talisman are both bells, hence the name - she would be meant to ring the bell of truth against the corruption of “The Boogeyman”, and her helmet, unlike his, emphasises her facial features.

The character design evolved from initially being a kind of reclusive hipster in a showy poncho to a go-go spacegirl in a showy poncho until the last design, where as you can see I threw away the rulebook and used the pointyness of her helm to make her into a kind of Wild-West Witch, with her poncho more in the style of Clint Eastwood.

In short: here is a character I drew once. Given the right motivation, I may draw her again some day.