In Spring 2025, I was asked to create a new music video for the upcoming album, "Sunlight Daydream", by Flamingosis and Diastrata. The song of choice was an upbeat yacht rock track called "Artificial Love".
"Artificial Love is the second taste of Flamingosis' × Diastrata’s forthcoming album Sunlight Daydream. Where the title track set the tone with a laid‑back, late‑summer glide, Artificial Love leans into bright vocal hooks, sunset‑lit guitar, and shimmering keys atop a retro‑funk pulse." - Flamingosis & Diastrata
INSPIRATION
"Yacht Rock" alone was enough to establish what I wanted this video to be: A group of buds jamming on a yacht in a vaguely european tropical setting. Since it was a similar setting to my "Soulsearcher" video, I decided I wanted to change up the style a bit this time. Instead of going for a Hiroshi Nagai-esque world, I decided to go with a more Art Deco / Vintage Travel Poster look. Here's some of those inspirations I pulled.
CONCEPTING
This time around, I really only made concept sketches for the characters as well as a sketch of an early version of the title (which was ultimately scrapped). The original title I had in mind would have been top-down ocean waves revealing the logo, but instead I went with more of an overture flyover shot before landing on the first angle. Most of the "storyboarding" that happened was through rough 3D animatics.
Choose wisely or I'll tell on you.
ASSET CREATION
The only 3D models in this MV are the boat, the characters+instruments, and the background buildings. Everything else is just camera-facing cards with custom illustrations by me, repeated along all the nature areas to it looked nicely filled in.
This was my favorite kind of transition to solve. It started as a quick experiment of using fields-driven unfolding geometry, but when looking straight ahead it looks like blooming flowers creating a radial wipe.
I got to repurpose these instruments for some closeup shots as well as a sillier scene where they boys all float around giant versions of them.
The "reflections" are just flipped versions of them with a solid color overall. I didn't want the little star streaks to also mirror so this added an extra bit of asymmetry to it.
It's all coming together.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
This took roughly 2-3 months from start to finish. Most shots are created as looping animations to cut from one to the next. This way, they can serve a double-purpose as seamless loops to be displayed in concerts!
CREDITS
Director/Animator: David Mellor
Character Rigging: Matt Siegel
Thanks for Flamingosis and Diastrata for the opportunity!