A new art project is taking over billboards in west London this month as part of a collaboration between Creative Review, creative street advertising specialists BuildHollywood and 3D artist Joseph Melhuish.

The new artwork puts a literal spin on the metaphorical phrase ‘listen to your heart’, which is also the name of the piece, as a smiling character rendered in Melhuish’s signature quirky style is shown doing just that – listening to their heart.

Creative Review and BuildHollywood approached Melhuish to create a visually vibrant and intricately designed artwork – something that would illustrate the creative opportunities to think outside the box when it comes to 3D billboards, which remain a valuable tool for brands, agencies and creatives to cut through the noise these days.

While billboards can communicate with people around the world thanks to social media, the inspiration and direct connection they foster among audiences in a physical environment remains a huge part of their power, as people passing through Shepherd’s Bush in the next few weeks will see for themselves.

With a fairly open brief, Melhuish began by visiting the physical site to get a sense of the space and surroundings he was working with. Then came the ideation phase. He visited museums and gallery exhibitions, like Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism at the Royal Academy, to get some inspiration flowing. “I didn’t get any ideas from it, but looking at stuff activates the bit of your brain that’s trying to connect dots,” he tells us.

He spent a week trialling as many as 50 different concepts. “I wanted to be in a flow state of ideas and then edit them down later,” he says. These were whittled down to four of the strongest concepts – one of which was Listen to your Heart.

It’s really nice that in VR, you have a sense of the scale of things because it’s all around you, so you can put yourself where you would be standing and see how it looks

The character’s face is shown on a digital display, while everything around it – including the analogue billboard next to it – features a complex set of physical 3D elements, which were developed by BuildHollywood Creative Studio’s skilled team of artists, designers, set builders, prop makers and carpenters. This includes a layered torso showing clothing pulled apart to reveal a pumping heart, and large headphones sitting over the digital display with an illuminated headphone wire joining the two billboards.

Movement was a key element of the brief. “For a lot of [the ideas] I was forcing the mechanisms into them,” says Melhuish. “I had an idea and then I was like, ‘how can it move?’ Whereas with this one, it felt like the movement was part of the idea,” he explains, referring to the animatronic heart.

The ambitious nature of the project meant collaborating with the production, build and installation teams at BuildHollywood Creative Studio, which often partners with brands and agencies all the way from the concept stage to launch. “I liked the idea of the team here basically trying stuff and then me looking at it and just being like, ‘What about this? What about that?’ Rather than being like, ‘This is exactly how it has to be, these are the materials that have to be used’,” Melhuish recalls.

“I knew I would need to see samples and take their recommendation on what will look good as well, because they’re more knowledgeable than me on stuff like that,” he adds. “But I think that’s enjoyable and that’s how you learn.”

For instance, he anticipated that the clothing in his artwork would be created out of fabrics. Instead, the studio team came up with a solution involving varying densities of foam. As well as being more robust, this complemented the curvaceous, sculptural 3D aesthetic of Melhuish’s artwork – and even echoed the process he used to create it.

“They’re clearly craftspeople and they’re building it like a real sculpture in a more traditional sense, which is quite nice because that’s how I’ve made it as well,” he explains. He uses Cinema4D, a 3D modelling and simulation software, and Medium, a digital sculpting program that allows an illustrator or animator to physically ‘carve’ an artwork in VR.

“It’s also really nice that in VR, you have a sense of the scale of things because it’s all around you, so you can put yourself where you would be standing and see how it looks in that sense,” he says. By using a 3D model of the billboard site supplied by the Creative Studio, he could get a feel of the space while he was creating the artwork. “I basically made that mock-up of the site into a single model, and then I sculpted on top of that in VR.”

I’m a believer that if you’re going to make something a bit freaky or unsettling, there has to be a pay off in some way for the person enjoying it, otherwise it’s just indulgent

Melhuish made a 3D model of his completed artwork, which the Creative Studio then used to create their own 3D model. This was transposed onto a material called blueback print that could be wrapped around the foam blocks ready for carving, along with 3D-printed models that the team referred to when finetuning the detail.

While the character pulling apart their jacket (and skin) to reveal a vital organ, arteries and all, lends the artwork a slightly subversive edge, it was important to Melhuish that it still carries a message that would resonate with audiences. “I’m a believer that if you’re going to make something a bit freaky or unsettling, there has to be a pay off in some way for the person enjoying it, otherwise it’s just indulgent, especially for public art,” he says. “When you’re doing something that everyone’s looking at, it feels selfish to be indulgent in that space. So it was convenient that the message supported the idea.”

The concept also feels true to Melhuish’s practice. Besides creating illustrations for the likes of the New York Times, Nike and Apple, a substantial chunk of his work is for music artists, festivals and brands including MTV and Spotify.

While he specialises in 3D in the context of digital illustration and animation, this is the first time his work has been translated into a physical 3D build with tactile layers of depth, making this a poignant project on a personal level. The outcome melds Melhuish’s digital art with the craft expertise of the BuildHollywood Creative Studio, pumping some joy and inspiration into the everyday.

Listen to your Heart by Joseph Melhuish in collaboration with BuildHollywood and Creative Review is on display at 13 Shepherd’s Bush Green, London, W12 8LE (next to the tube station) until July 2. You can see the beating heart in action at 9-11am and 4-6pm daily; buildhollywood.co.uk; josephmelhuish.com