Guitar Center - Drum-Off 2026
The ask
I was tasked with creating an intro video for Guitar Center's revival event "Drum-Off 2026"! The art direction was already set. My deliverables were the following: one intro video, one MGRT lower third with editable properties, one logo animation.
Design
The bulk of my design process consisted of Photoshop and Illustrator. I was already provided a wonderful set of illustrations from the client. It was my job to turn them into a story for this video.
I ended up making a few assets of my own as well using the Illustrator files sent to me. A television, gravestone, drum sticks and the lower thirds that I would later be turning into an editable MGRT file.
Animation
The bulk of my animation was done in After Effects. I ported everything over with Overlord which was very handy since I wanted to take advantage of a lot of shape layer functions. I used a lot of expressions for looping secondary assets like buttons flickering, wheels turning and bubbles... bubbling. That being said, I got a couple of opportunities to use Procreate Dreams which was fun. A few elements I wanted a more organic feel like the lightning and the eyeballs so I did my rough animations there and then ported over to AE for comping.
MGRT // Lower thirds
I was also tasked with creating some lower thirds to add to the project for the editors that will be working on the final video. I suggested using MGRTs in order to give the editors the flexibility in adding whatever name suited them. I added editable properties for the name, location and colors. The name automatically updates the length of the background based on layer length.
Final video
Overall I'm very happy with how this one turned out. I even got to practice a lot new skills like cel animation, expressions and MGRTs.
Drum-Off is back in 2026 after a nine year break! I was brought on to help create an intro video showcasing the recap and to bring life to some of their pre-existing illustrations. The "It's alive!" Frankenstein theme is very prevalent and helped influence a lot of my design choices and ideas.
Animation and design : Ricardo Jaimes
Illustrations : Nate Azark
Client : Guitar Center