In my 2020 Gameday animations, every enemy team is characterized either as an enemy (such as a phoenix or sasquatch) or a location (such as the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, or a sea of blue flames). I relied on neon vector elements, similar layouts, and other shared elements to anchor the branding. Using my signature 2.5D style, I blended real life player photo with vector backgrounds and pictures of game characters, creating a half-in, half-out environment that explored the players' positions as both real athletes and in-game superstars.Many of the team's fans are not only fans of the Mayhem but fans of the Overwatch League as a whole. For many organizations in [e]sports, gameday graphics rely entirely on their own brand. While this produces consistency, I thought that properly presenting the opponent teams would produce a clearer storyline and allow fans to better connect with our matches and players. Thus, I took on the challenge of balancing storytelling while maintaining the consistency and strength of the Mayhem brand.

I created various animated and static assets to complement the bevy of video content that was published over the season. To do so, I worked with Mayhem staff to turn their content ideas into actual assets. Each presented a unique challenge; for instance, the Mayhem on the Mic series required a multilingual intro using gaming terminology that didn't come off as pedantic or uncool. Then, the television test screen stinger for the same series needed to be humorous without grabbing too much attention, or, again, coming off as uncool. In other words, the Mayhem brand demanded a difficult, subtle balance of whimsy and coolness. To achieve this, I relied largely on speed and acceleration in my animation-- alternating between a leisurely crawl that evoked slow summer nights on Miami beaches and quick, snappy zooms and slides that kept the animation lively.

motion graphics

My philosophy to motion design is simple: I hone into the purpose of a piece and distill it into motion through vibrancy and excitement!For audio, please use the player controls on the individual videos. For an extended list of videos I've worked on, you can also check this YouTube playlist.

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As I was given the go-ahead to deviate from the usual brand style for this event, I chose to combine Miami Vice vaporwave elements and bright pastel colors to create a style that was both nostalgic and vibrant. Although the pink and blue were both in line with the Mayhem color swatch, the normal brand style used black as a primary color. Using the pink and blue as primaries reflected the refreshing, youthful feel of the roster, which included both new and old players.To achieve this style, I combined three separate typefaces: one classic Outrunner cursive font, one blocky "gamer" style font, and one Windows 95 inspired font. The Windows 95 font also needed to be compatible with Korean text to accommodate the bilingual nature of the event.

To further this blend between the retro and the new, I created a Windows 95-inspired window overlay in After Effects, complete with buttons. These vector shape-based overlays were fully modular, allowing the production team to use them in multiple scenes. To make them feel more friendly and vibrant, I made use of color by using the blue and pink colorway in the title bar and text and opting for warmth in the shadows and highlights.

Dr.NOVA(e): Channel Debut Trailer

Dr.NOVA(e) is a YouTube channel run by Brave Group's V4Mirai talent agency as part of the third generation of V4Mirai's VTuber (virtual YouTuber) talents. In early 2024, I was contracted to create a 30 second debut trailer to serve as an ad spot ahead of the channel's launch.

Debut trailers are the first introduction the public gets to the voice and personality of a VTuber agency talent. VTubers are marketed with a diverse range of fantasy character concepts, but their personalities tend to fall into a limited number of niches marketing-wise, as VTuber branding often follows Japanese idol culture in keeping talents on an untouchable pedestal of “cute” or “cool”. Dr.NOVA(e)'s concept was that of a mad scientist, and while the character assets could be spun as cool, I took the opportunity to grab attention by depicting Dr.NOVA(e) as a chaotic, uncontrollable mess. In other words, adding a new C to the VTuber dichotomy: not just cute or cool, but crazy.

In keeping with this theme, the script see-sawed between moods rapidly-- from villainous to meek, from gleeful to despondent. Therefore, I decided to emphasize the pathos generated by these discrepancies. As the video was destined to be a 5-second-skippable YouTube ad, it was imperative that the first five seconds could immediately convey this pathos and hook the viewer. Dramatic compositing is one of my specialties, so I used photorealistic displacement on a parallax shot with a backlit character illustration to establish a sense of drama, then swapped to the unfiltered, disheveled Live2D model and introduced subtitles to visually relieve the tension and call attention to her endearing dorkiness.

Pacing was also of utmost importance-- both to maintain coherency with such a chaotic script, but also to retain viewership over the course of the ad. I selected an EDM song with an inherent degree of stiltedness to complement the voiceover's starts and stops. I then edited the music such that the long "depression"/rising action segment had quieter and slower, but tense and unusual sounds to match. The visual pace was very fast to begin with (new shot every ~3 seconds). While the number of new shots slowed gradually, I used rapid 3D typography in these slower shots to create intrigue. This tactic paid off, as the trailer shows a distinct replay bump with every new shot and minimal retention loss in between.

The lab tray segment was requested by the talent. While taking the camera off the character is a risky move, given that it removes the immediate engagement of human contact and thus increases the risk of the viewer clicking away, I animated this to have the opposite effect. First, the transition between these segments was an accelerating zoom. Logically, a zoom out should take the viewer to a "larger" picture, especially when the background color goes from dark (subconsciously associated with small spaces) to white (associated with large spaces). But here, the lab tray was a "smaller" environment than the previous shot. Secondly, I kept NOVA on-screen for parts of this segment-- not as a full-size human in her lab, but as a paper cutout in a lab tray.A virtual YouTuber's relationship with 2D space and reality is inherently paradoxical. By using these illusory contradictions to explicitly pry the paradox open for the viewer to engage with, the viewer is jolted not out of the video, but further into the character's inner world. NOVA's dungeon, in which she is bound by chains made of her own words, could be a metaphor for her being bound by her madness, or it could depict literal captivity. Her appearance on a lab tray inverts her role-- now the subject, rather than the mad scientist-- but whether it hints at an actual event in her past or is a metaphorical depiction of persecution is ambiguous. Of course, the beauty of this technique is that all implications exist in the viewer's mind concurrently. Regardless of whether this happens consciously or subconsciously, the intrigue inspired by these multiple interpretations translates directly to interest in the VTuber-- setting up the channel for an engaged fan base.

• "When I saw this ad for the first time, I just couldn’t skip"
• "guys i think she might be crazy... 👩🔬"
• "the first vtuber I actually like and there's not even a minute"
• "not even 10 seconds into the video and im already hooked."
• "SEEN SO MANY VTUBER ADS AND DECIDED TO CLICK ONE. IM SO HAPPY"

This debut trailer was wildly successful and broke V4Mirai's pre-debut subscriber and view record. At release, its viewership was four times the average V4Mirai debut trailer (+ 111,000 views), and more than the rest of the generation's trailers added together. It led to over 30,000 subscriptions before channel launch.Comments on the trailer show a trend of engagement from viewers whom were previously uninterested in VTubers, or whom saw the video as a YouTube ad and were compelled not to skip. The most common sentiment: "She's crazy!"

My responsibilities included storyboarding, design, sourcing music, audio editing, and motion graphics. Art and voiceover provided by V4Mirai.

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FLORIDA MUTINEERS

Florida Mutineers was a tier 1 franchised esports team competing in the Call of Duty League and owned by Misfits Gaming. They are now known as Miami Heretics. While working for Misfits Gaming between 2019-2022, I created various assets, including social media graphics, wallpapers, and video assets for their use.

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V-Dere Debut

V-Dere is a YouTube collective of VTubers (virtual YouTubers). For their 2023 debut as a collective, I animated a teaser trailer and reveal trailer.I focused on a bright, airy mood that emphasized the talents' cuteness and lighthearted charm. As pre-existing solo talents, each of the four talents had disparate branding and art styles. I tied them together through color blocking and compositing techniques that equalized their brand colors and drew attention to their respective features.

For the final video, each talent had an individualized segment featuring a hand-drawn animation. Here, I storyboarded and timed the video, then animated the model shots, character descriptions, intro and outro, group shots, and pre-animation filler for extended shots.The aim of a VTuber PV is to attract new viewers to the individual talents, so I aimed to emphasize each talent's uniqueness. I took a more photo-realistic approach and constructed anime-style parallax scenes using primarily 2D vector-based assets in 3D space.

My responsibilities included storyboarding, design, and motion animation. All motion graphics in the trailers were created by me. The hand-drawn animations and Live2D models were provided by the client.

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