Jazza

As you may have realised by now from a few of my past blog posts, I love discovering other artistic talent courtesy of YouTube. Be that digital or traditional, I enjoy gaining inspiration through other’s creativity, as well as marvel at the incredible talent on show. Recently suggested to me via my recommendations was the Jazza channel starring… Jazza! Covering a vast mix of artistic experimentation, it was the nerdier, pop culture videos that specifically caught my attention.

Boasting over six million followers, the channel is a roaring success. With multiple creative avenues explored to appeal to every viewer, you can find tips and tricks, discover new techniques entirely, or just watch some glorious creative interpretation, the latter being my favourite of course.

The specific series I want to focus on, and the one that initially enticed me to click on that play button, was Jazza being given a description of a character or monster from literature before creating his own interpretation. The most interesting aspect of this is that most of these characters have already been depicted in TV and film, leading to some fascinating reveals at the end of each challenge.

Given key aesthetic traits by the production team, Jazza begins by sketching in the key identifiers of the character. As a budding artistic myself, I am totally in awe of how quickly he can construct their facial structure and expressions. Rarely creating from imagination for this very reason, I rely mostly on sketching from reference myself to ensure the accuracy of my proportions. Moving on to painting, Jazza first blocks in the key colour areas before refining the shading and adding flourishes of detail in the character’s luscious locks and fancy waistcoat.

Taking a guess before the reveal, I definitely got Gilderoy Lockhart vibes from the Harry Potter series. Incredibly to my surprise and Jazza’s alike, the description was in fact for Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle, clearly the Studio Ghibli interpretation quite different from the author’s original.

Even more exciting than the character focus are the monsters, their bizarre descriptions leading to far more diverse and deviant outcomes. For the monsters, I love how Jazza breaks down the key components of the description, sketching each out independently before combining them into a single cohesive creature.

The composition of this final piece, an Oni as it turns out, is incredible, an adventurer stood petrified in front of the towering beast. I love the stark use of black and white, and the way a white marker has been used to illuminate the form of each character.

What makes the channel so appealing, besides the ridiculous talent of course, is Jazza’s personality. Enthusiastic, witty and explaining his process, you aren’t left to passively watch, making for much more engaging and accessible content. Funnily enough, speaking to my designer housemate, we both independently stumbled across the channel, and I would recommend that you “accidentally” stumble across it too.