Goin' Off

Step into the world of Ghost Kidz! LiL' ILL and Filth-E join forces with Vince Staples in their electrifying debut video, "Goin' Off." TONIC DNA was thrilled to be part of this exciting Superplastic project.

Academy Award-nominee Robert Valley brings his trademark hyper-graphic and unmistakable animation style to the first chapter in this multi-part video series. “Goin Off” finds the hip-hop duo immersed in desert-saturated colors, distorted designs, and blended 3D and 2D techniques create a rambunctious trip into a new sonic universe. We loved working alongside Valley and the Superplastic team to turn this ambitious vision into a reality.

Achieving Robert Valley's signature 2D look in 3D was no easy task, especially when the two techniques appear side by side for “Goin’ Off!” We scoured his previous works and try to get as close as we could, and Valley provided very detailed colour studies and draw overs to guide the team.

There was a total collaboration between lighting and comp, where what came out of 3D lighting renders wasn’t meant to be close to the final look, but to give as many tools to comp to achieve the stylized result. The FX portion was entirely done with a 2D style in traditional animation and is across both universes. This allows a common thread between both portions of the video. We also used substance painter and Photoshop for texture generation and a ragdoll plugin to generate the hair animation.

For the portion of the video entirely in 2D animation, we used a cut-out technique and created puppets based on Valley’s designs. For our animation team, working with a well-known 2D director like Robert Valley was truly an honor and we are proud of the final results.