In the summer of 2021, I connected with music artist and internet personality Tacoda. He was interested in getting a Canvas ready for his anticipated single Random Faults, which he was planning to release in June. Instead of going back and forth on styles, inspiration, and other details, Tacoda graciously handed me all of the creative agency for this project.

After listening to the song demo, I decided to put together a nostalgia-themed multimedia animation. I thought that this style would best reflect both Tacoda’s personality, as well as the LA internet celebrity culture that he was involved in. He sent me a collection of film photos from a photoshoot he did with Dance Moms star Kenzie Ziegler; these photos were the perfect nod to the vintage film hype, while also providing good animation subjects. I took each of the photos into Photoshop and cut out the subjects. I used Procreate to make hand-drawn multimedia assets and sketches, which I then imported into After Effects for arrangement. To make the background for some of the frames, I dug up some of my old high school notes with doodles on them. I scanned these notes and put them behind the sketched and photo assets, leaving a subtle but effective way of establishing the old school/nostalgic effect.

When the final Canvas was published on Spotify, both Tacoda and I were really excited to have worked together on a release that expressed so much creativity. Kenzie Ziegler posted the song to her Instagram story (@kenzie) with the Canvas, which was a very exciting moment for me; I never thought my work would be seen by millions of people so early into my creative career. You can listen to Random Faults and watch the Canvas here.