El Macarraka
I was asked to do a set of 16 illustrations to win the chance of them being published as stickers in LINE app. My character made it to the final four, and, although it did not win, it was made available for download.
El Macarraka is a spanish youngster living a day at a time. He's constantly changing temper is inspired by punk and rock music, as well as spanish street talk. The intention was to create a character to which a very specific group of spanish young people could relate to. This way, they could find visual manifestations of their day to day expressions, filled with the tone they want to communicate.
Context became a challenge for this project. The stickers would appear on small sizes among conversation bubbles. Emphasis was to be made on expressions, not drawing and technique detail.
It is not the same to say No, than to say Infinitely No.
Textures, rough finishes, a limited color palette with acid-ish combinations allowed me to communicate the character's constantly changing humor, thus enhancing each expression.
One thing that surprised me is that LINE aims at a more local kind of expressions. It was only natural to be tempted to create expressions that could relate to most, but stickers are all about doing the exact opposite: they allow us to find a visualization for very unique expression, filled with personality, tone and intensity. Universality, in this case, is not as useful as uniqueness and closeness.
