The Toyes · Animated Music Video · Character Design · 2D Animation
The Toyes “Smoke Two Joints” — Animated Music Video, Characters & Illustrated Website
I created the animated music video artwork, band caricatures, character designs and website illustrations for The Toyes, the original writers and performers of the cult reggae track “Smoke Two Joints.”
Project overview
- Client: The Toyes
- Project: Smoke Two Joints animated music video and illustrated website
- Role: art direction, character design, cartoon illustration, visual development and 2D animation
- Additional work: band caricatures and website illustration
- Production: Adobe Flash / Adobe Animate and Photoshop
The assignment became considerably more than a single animated clip. It developed into a small visual universe that could move between animation, band imagery and the group’s online presence.
Watch the complete animated music video
The complete animated music video for The Toyes’ “Smoke Two Joints,” featuring the characters, illustrations and animation I created for the band.
Complete animated music video for The Toyes’ “Smoke Two Joints,” hosted on the Bright Bulb Solutions YouTube channel.
The Toyes and the story behind “Smoke Two Joints”
“Smoke Two Joints” was written by Chris Kay and Michael Kay of The Toyes and first released by the band in the early 1980s.
The song reached a much wider audience when Sublime recorded its own version for 40oz. to Freedom in 1992. As a result, the track is frequently associated with Sublime and has also circulated online under other incorrect attributions.
For this project I was working directly with the band behind the original song, developing a visual treatment around The Toyes themselves rather than illustrating the later cover version.
Behind the scenes: animation & production process
The video includes material from the animation together with a behind-the-scenes look at the project inside Adobe Flash — the software now developed as Adobe Animate.
Band caricatures & character design
I developed cartoon likenesses of the band members as a cast of characters that could perform, react and move through the video.
The challenge was not simply resemblance. The designs also had to work as animation assets: clear silhouettes, expressive faces and enough flexibility to support movement and visual comedy.
A hand-built 2D animation workflow
The characters, props and backgrounds were drawn and prepared specifically for the animation. Elements were separated into workable assets and animated in Adobe Flash.
That production method allowed the video to retain a distinctly drawn, cartoon quality while giving enough control over timing, movement and repeated character actions to build a full music video efficiently.
The same basic principle still informs much of my current animation work: design the visual language first, then make movement serve the drawing and the story.
Aliens, UFOs & dancing trees
The band members were only part of the cast. I also created dancing trees, aliens, flying saucers, props, backgrounds and a range of small visual jokes.
Rather than treating each shot as an isolated illustration, I approached the project as a cartoon world with its own recurring visual vocabulary. Characters and objects could reappear, interact and carry jokes from one sequence into another.
That is where animation, character design and sequential storytelling begin to overlap. Once a character has a recognisable personality and a world to inhabit, the same visual system can support many different scenes and formats.
Extending the visual world onto the web
Alongside the music video, I created illustrated material for The Toyes’ website. This allowed the visual identity developed for the animation to continue outside the film itself.
Band imagery, characters, music-related graphics and surreal elements could all share the same tone rather than treating the website as a separate visual exercise.
The result was closer to a small illustrated identity system than a collection of unrelated graphics: the same cast and visual language could support animation, web content and promotional material.
From music video to character-led visual communication
The Toyes project sits at the intersection of several areas of my work: illustration, character design, cartooning, animation, visual storytelling and creative direction.
The subject happens to be a music video, but the underlying design problem appears in many other kinds of commissions: create a recognisable visual world, establish characters and tone, and then make that system work consistently across multiple pieces of communication.
That approach can be used for entertainment projects, but also for brands, campaigns, publishing, education and business communication.
Explore related illustration & animation work
If you arrived here through Smoke Two Joints and would like to see how this kind of illustration and visual storytelling connects to my current commissioned work, these are the most relevant areas:
- Hand-Drawn Animation & Explainer Videos — illustrated animation, storyboards and complete visual production
- Logo & Mascot Design — original characters and mascot systems
- Comics & Sequential Illustration — character-led stories and illustrated sequences
- Commissioned Illustration & Campaign Visuals — illustration for brands, advertising and business communication
- Graphic Design & Creative Direction — visual systems, campaigns and cross-media direction
More project work
For larger project breakdowns and a broader overview of commissioned illustration:
Planning an animation or character-led project?
If you have a music, entertainment, campaign or business project in mind, send me a brief outline of the idea, intended audience, format and where the finished visuals need to work.
