Fantoms of the Underground: Creepy Capers
I loved producing this animation, which debuted at Dupont Underground's art gallery on Halloween night 2025. In partnership with District Motion Graphics, a community of motion designers in the Washington D.C. area, this animation showcase was the first collaborative animation event I'd ever participated in. The experience allowed me to meet incredibly talented artists and left me creatively energized. I highly recommend collaborating with other motion designers whenever possible—even just for fun. The event was held in conjunction with Fantom Comics in Dupont Circle, which inspired the comic book theme throughout the piece.
I had a clear vision from the start: an urban 3D environment with atmospheric depth that I could render in comic book style with thick lines and toon shading. I planned to handle all the characters as 2D cutouts, leaning into the comic book aesthetic. I began by blocking out the street layout with splines, then created the geometry for the curb, sidewalk, and asphalt once I was satisfied with the rough outline.
I built a separate Cinema 4D project as an asset library containing all my models—everything from walk-up houses, storefronts, apartment buildings, and skyscrapers to street-level details like mailboxes, street lights, and benches. I textured all models with simple Redshift toon shaders. The models were sourced from The Happy Toolbox via Greyscale Gorilla and the C4D content browser.
With my city block arranged, I animated the camera to achieve the first-person perspective I envisioned. I wanted to place the viewer directly in the protagonist's shoes to enhance the piece's unsettling mood. To accomplish this, the camera needed to move down the block at a natural pace with subtle bobbing motion to mimic the perspective of walking.
Now that my Cinema 4D animation was rendered it was time to bring the files into After Effects and composite in my 2D elements.
2D and Composite
Once my Cinema 4D animation was rendered, I brought the files into After Effects to composite the 2D elements. I had placed nulls at specific points relative to the camera in Cinema 4D where I wanted my 2D elements, then imported those nulls into After Effects. I wanted to treat the characters as flat cards, and the best way to achieve a vintage comic feel was to source public domain vintage comic assets.
I cut out usable assets in Photoshop, then recolored and adjusted them to fit my scene's color palette and aesthetic. I aligned these comic cutouts with the Cinema 4D nulls, then added vignetting, edge blur, and chromatic aberration to heighten the spooky, unsettling atmosphere.
The piece debuted at Dupont Underground's Halloween Animation Showcase, and I couldn't have been more honored to share the space with dozens of incredibly talented animators. It was my first time seeing my work projected in a physical space—an unforgettable experience.