Blame Your Brother is a Toronto-based studio founded by twin brothers Geoff and Darren Donovan, specializing in hand-drawn 2D animation. With nearly two decades of experience in the animation and advertising world, the Donovans have built a reputation for crafting captivating, character-driven stories. In this article, they spoke with Toon Boom and shared insights into one of their latest projects — a series of music videos made in collaboration with Pharell and a host of other music talents, set in an imaginative Doodleverse.
We give our readers an exclusive look at Blame Your Brother’s creative process, including the challenges of bringing this vibrant project to life. Geoff and Darren share some of the tools that powered their animation pipeline, particularly Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard Pro. They’ll be giving valuable insight into how their team combined traditional hand-drawn animation and how these tools helped create cohesive character designs, seamless animation and stunning visual effects.
The article also details Blame Your Brother’s collaboration with the Doodles team, led by the visionary illustrator Burnt Toast, and their experience working with music legend Pharrell Williams. Through this partnership, the project reimagines how animation and music can intersect to create immersive storytelling. Whether you’re an animation professional or simply a fan of creative visuals, this article offers an in-depth look at how Blame Your Brother and their team used Toon Boom’s software to bring these immersive music videos to life, and provides a glimpse into the studio’s next exciting ventures.
Please introduce yourselves and your studio, Blame Your Brother…
Geoff and Darren: We’re Geoff and Darren Donovan — twin brothers, founders, and creative directors of Blame Your Brother Animation Studio (BYB) in Toronto, Canada. At BYB, we’ve built a character and story-driven animation studio dedicated to the art of hand-drawn 2D animation. What brought us together in this journey is a shared passion for crafting vibrant, captivating stories that connect with audiences. For nearly two decades, we’ve been pouring our hearts into the animation and advertising world, bringing our love of storytelling and craft to every project we touch.
Can you tell us a bit about your team and your individual roles on the project?
Geoff and Darren: We’re very much a dynamic duo, often inspiring each other with collecting references and sharing potential ideas and concepts. Our formal titles are both co-director / creative director but we do have our niches.
On this project, Geoff led the art department, hiring and inspiring the design teams to create a visual language and tone that aligned with the Doodle’s brand. This consisted of inspiring concept artists, character design, layout, background painting and final compositing.
Darren is the head of all things motion and more. On this project, Darren concentrated on hiring the talented character and FX animation departments, giving motivation and feedback to all crew members and often animating FX whenever he could spare a moment.
For our ‘Not In The Store’ project, we brought together a diverse team of talented 2D artists from around the world. Our process often begins with a core group of people that includes both seasoned professionals and friends that we’ve been collaborating with for over 27 years as well as fresh talent whose perspectives add new energy and ideas.
While our jobs and crew can vary from one creative project to the next we enjoy working with like-minded individuals who meet the specific needs and style of each project. This approach allows us to craft tailored solutions that elevate each project and deliver exactly what our clients envision!
For readers who might be unaware, what is the Doodleverse?
Geoff and Darren: The Doodleverse is a vibrant world within the Doodles’ creative lore, brought to life through their platform, the ‘Stoodio.’ Doodles has shared with us their vision as a next-generation entertainment studio focused on immersive storytelling that blends music, animation, and cutting-edge technology.
As part of an exciting 360° campaign to launch their short film Dullsville and the Doodleverse, Doodles released a three-track EP produced by Pharrell, featuring Not In The Store. This creative journey reaches its peak with a live activation at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, where the Doodleverse truly comes alive. It’s thrilling to be part of a project that reimagines how stories are told and experienced!
Who are the main characters we see in your music video?
Geoff and Darren: Our ‘Not In The Store’ music video stars Deysi, a cosmic ‘teen Mother Nature’ with a mission! Voiced by the talented Coi Leray, Deysi drifts through the galaxy, bringing worlds to life by transforming dull, barren landscapes into vibrant, lush environments bursting with color and energy. With every step, she spreads a little bit of magic, seeding new life wherever she goes.
What was your favorite part of animating these characters
Geoff and Darren: Generally speaking, these characters were designed with such a fun, stylized flow that animating them was a real treat – they’re very “animatable”. Their movements had this beautiful, fluid quality that made them a perfect match for the dance-inspired reference videos from our choreographer. Watching them come to life through each step was one of the highlights of the whole production. Every frame had its own energy and charm!
What did you find challenging on the project and how did Toon Boom’s software help you meet that challenge?
Geoff and Darren: Bringing a unified vision to life with a team of talented designers and animators can be one of the biggest challenges in animation, especially when it comes to maintaining consistent character design and animation quality. To tackle this, we used Toon Boom Harmony to create rigged characters – pre-built models that our team could share and apply seamlessly across scenes. We enhanced this by combining rigged characters with traditional hand-drawn animation – this gave us the flexibility to choose the best approach for each scene.
Harmony empowered us to blend structure and artistry, giving our team the creative freedom to elevate the animation in a way that felt cohesive yet dynamic.
How did your relationship with the team behind Doodleverse come about?
Geoff and Darren: This collaboration had been a long time in the making. Scott Martin, aka “Burnt Toast”, the brilliant mind behind the Doodles, has been a fan of our work for years… just as we’ve admired his unique style! When Scott invited us to pitch for the ‘Not in the Store’ project, we jumped at the chance.
After putting together a director’s treatment and story outline, we were thrilled to be awarded the project. We also got the incredible opportunity to team up with the talented folks at Golden Wolf, Doodles’ creative powerhouse known for animation and mixed-media magic. It was the perfect blend of creative energies coming together!
What is the experience of working with a soundtrack from a music legend like Pharell?
Geoff and Darren: Working with Pharrell and the Doodles team was an absolute pleasure. From the start, they embraced our concepts and ideas with open minds and mutual respect, creating a smooth and collaborative process. There was this wonderful balance where, if we pushed a bit too far, they’d help guide us back, but they also encouraged us to explore, helping us find that perfect creative edge.
We poured everything we had into doing justice to the song, pulling out all the stops in our creative arsenal. The experience was filled with a shared love for the craft and a true spirit of teamwork. It felt like the dream project, with a dream team and dream clients! We can’t wait for another opportunity to work alongside this talented crew in the future.
How did you both get into animation and what is your story up to this point?
Geoff and Darren: Back in high school, we jumped at a rare chance to take a few animation classes pioneered by our inspiring art teachers, Stephen Gal and Wendy Forsyth. It was truly life-changing. Learning the art of bringing stories to life through animation sparked a passion that has driven us ever since. That first experience wasn’t just a class, it was the beginning of a journey that shaped us, both as artists and storytellers. From that moment, we knew we had found something special, something that felt like magic, and it’s been our creative pursuit ever since.
What’s coming next from Blame Your Brother studios?
Geoff and Darren: We’re thrilled to be diving into some exciting new pitches for upcoming ad campaigns and brand collaborations! Working on creative projects like the Not In The Store music video with the amazing Doodles team has been so inspiring, and it’s the kind of work we can’t wait to keep exploring. It’s projects like these that fuel our passion for blending creativity and innovation to create something truly memorable
- Interested in seeing more from Blame Your Brother? Be sure to visit the studio’s website.
- Want to see more from the Doodleverse? You can watch all three music videos from the Dullsville and the Doodleverse EP on the @welikethedoodles YouTube channel.
- Want to get a head start on your next project? Artists can download a 21-day trial of Toon Boom Harmony.
