My good friends Kelly and Kammile of Karmina reached out to me wanting to work on a music video for an upcoming song. felt so grateful for the chance to work on this because I've always wanted to make a music video and these are some of my favorite people to work with.
My first steps were to both design a general look for the project and at the same time start a storyboard for the major moments. There was already a version of the song created and the timing was locked so i knew once i began things wouldn't shift around a lot and I could get really custom with the transition moments.
Example of a frame style, looking into a celestial visual with stars and planets.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/554d998e-e655-4be6-8db1-0e21917acdf8_rw_1920.png?h=788fcd1a70bf71130b70dea0e6c6c16c)
The chorus section of the storyboard.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/1b1df4a0-ab38-4180-91df-d2f18eeb5858_rw_1920.png?h=3bea4b0eb4d84185c6a4e0e99a2d882a)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/bdf4a075-687d-4ee7-a816-fe1dd91518c0_rw_1920.png?h=1ef64ac9b218a0f0f45558cf5c69a2db)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/9372141c-e089-4e00-bfcd-71f86ad7aa7b_rw_1920.png?h=4512db0598a52656523bcc080feb994a)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/c693154e-eb73-490f-a9fe-806cbabdca9a_rw_1920.png?h=47f262ef5628f17f994c72c0e692c888)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/6b9f60db-2628-41b8-8798-e48ed11260d8_rw_1920.png?h=2739944a31000cc6f9f252fd772c2c1c)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/ab1a13c6-f1c9-4d77-9d22-29773fe0c4ab_rw_1920.png?h=956a24337ddb0424d95a2619581bcac9)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/44de5a7f-881a-443a-b358-1f56eb13d95f_rw_1920.png?h=5ac245aa3d6dba07b228002dabea615a)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/c34f69b0-eb30-49a2-8777-5feb42a48cb4_rw_1920.png?h=fc511cfc3bf00f22e697822313aa7826)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/6dfaa543-f2e1-4521-88a7-8728f9dea35e_rw_1920.png?h=fe6fcd386d650ad8a3920a6dda35ecbb)
Example of the storyboard timed out to the song.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/9905c8c9-2566-43d3-a73b-242129aa8213_rw_1920.gif?h=bc510f238d3eac98873da5ddb6d96ea7)
Knowing the chorus would appear several times, I wanted to devote more of time into this sequence making it even more special and allowing it to evolve visually over the piece. I ended up bringing the animation into 3D for the planets and then applied a hand animated textures to unify the visuals.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/4816013b-6684-416f-8421-b2cc822ead03_rw_1920.gif?h=2000bd056668419cba8700a1b36e94e5)
Now that almost everything was planned out, I went through and drew several states of each illustration to create the wiggling lines effect seen. I brought the illustrations into after effects from procreate which i would then cut up into sections that looped. I would also animate by hand any custom animations. For the type I would import clean text into procreate, traced the type multiple times, and then export it into after effects.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/7c6910e6-7880-47d3-a0f7-2f08847549de_rw_3840.gif?h=d67d7b42a1bf36af022e9a4eb731d7c4)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/7e6196d6-1551-4d11-8459-2529b71b77a5/96cfcbea-7480-4f6b-a76b-574166d43ed9_rw_3840.gif?h=2f5640f6f947b0f5c2ffc2f8d17b5fa7)
Finally i brought in the color and final details like the stars for the entire piece. One problem I ran into is after I created all the stars using particular, we paused the project for several months (while my son was born) and when i picked it back up my particular upgraded and everything needed to be updated. It would have taken longer to update all my particle layers so I ended up only targeting the scenes i was still animating. Looking back it probably would have been quicker to simply redo all the stars in the new system from scratch.
Credits:
Music: Karmina
Illustration, Design, Animation: Jonathan Larson (JJLL Design)