Note:
(a) "Yuka IGHIKAWA 石川友香, one half of the husband and wife graphic artist team behind Saya"
Saya is a female given name in Japan, represented by many combinations of kanji (as long as their Chinese pronunciations are either). This "Saya" in Japan is written in English.
(b) "When the couple first posted pictures of the hyper-realistic schoolgirl online last year, it was a revelation about what can be achieved with computer design."
computer design. Also written as CG, for computer graphics.
(c) "Her slightly askew school tie, heavily fringed hair, freckled skin and teenage pout left thousands trying to work out whether or not she was a real person."
(i) Oxford explicitly says this adjective is "predicative," as opposed to "attributive" (placed before the noun).
askew https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/askew
Other online dictionaries may not say "predicative" but all of them give examples in which askew is predicative,
I guess this strange use of askew by the reporter is due to the (speculative) fact Ms Tan is a not a native speaker (otherwise how to explain the faux pas).
(ii) "heavily fringed hair"
(A) BBC Chinese translates it as 浓密的刘海.
(B) fringe
(n): "mainly British a section of the front hair cut short over the forehead"
(vt--transitive verb): "to adorn or fit with a fringe or fringes" www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fringe
(C) fringe (n): "chiefly British BANG" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fringe
In order words, Americans call it "bang."
(d) "We also focused on the Japanese idea of kawaii or being cute - she is the modern representation of kawaii."
Japanese-English dictionary:
* ka-wai-i かわいい(可愛い) (adj): "cute; adorable; charming; lovely; pretty"
(e) photo caption: "In order to animate Saya's movement, the duo used motion capture technology[.] A young Japanese woman helped in capturing and bringing Saya's movements to life[.]"
The woman in the photos is a real human.
(f) "This week they debuted the first animated version of Saya at CEATEC, a consumer electronics exhibition in Japan. The short clip [nine seconds in duration] is arguably less impressive than the still images, and Saya's movement seem a little jerky, but it's a big leap forward for the character."
(i) CEATEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEATEC
(Combined Exhibition of Advanced TEChnologies)
(ii) BBC Chinese: "你也可以说，一段短短的视频，看上去不像那些静止图片一样给人留下深刻印象，而且，Saya的动作看上去也还有一点生硬，但是，对Saya来说，这无疑已经是又朝前迈进了一大步。"
Because there is no link to the video, a reader like me does not know what it means by 一段短短的视频.
(iii) Other than this 9-second clip, all images of Saya are still 靜物 (not 3-D).
(g) photo caption: "Teruyuki and Yuka Ishikawa have dedicated all their time towards creating and refining Saya"
(i) Teruyuki ISHIKAWA 石川晃之
(ii) The verb "teru" is represented in kanji as 照る, but his parents-- when naming him -- used 晃 for the same meaning but retain the verb's pronunciation.
Japanese-English dictionary:
* teru 照る 【てる】 (v): "to shine"
* kōkō 煌々; 晃々【こうこう】 (adj): "brilliant; dazzling; light; bright" (Here the "kō" is the Chinese pronunciation in Japan.)