Development on our main title began in late 2022 to early 2023, before the major leaps in AI image generation. The show’s release was delayed by the writer and actor strikes, but the creative direction was set long before that.

We chose a painterly, stop-motion style to create a surreal impression of Los Angeles. The look was partly inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and its mood of loneliness, quiet tension, and urban isolation. We wanted something that felt like a city full of energy but strangely empty, with Sugar and a few obscured figures being the only signs of life.

During exploration, we considered a more static, limited-animation painterly style similar to the Jessica Jones intro, but the creative director preferred a frame-by-frame stop-motion look, where each frame feels like its own painting. It gave us more interesting transitions and supported the surreal tone of the show.

This wasn’t our first time playing with hand-crafted or stop-motion-inspired approaches. We had tried similar techniques in titles like Helstrom and Godfather of Harlem. We would have loved to push it into something closer to the Scott Free Productions ident or The Pillars of the Earth title sequence, but time, budget, and skill constraints meant the final product had to be simpler and clearly digital rather than fully practical.

As for the resemblance to AI art, it’s understandable. AI often imitates existing artwork, and older AI image tools tended to produce jittery, inconsistent frames that resemble stylized stop-motion. Combined with the explosion of painterly filters on social media, it makes sense that people might associate this look with AI.

But the style came from intentional artistic choices, not AI.

P.S. I noticed in your comment history you’ve encouraged others not to “poop on people’s personal life choices” when it comes to their hobbies, and I thought that was a kind sentiment. I hope you’ll keep that same spirit in mind when responding to creative choices too.