Created as the final project for my third-year animation module, The Drum That Fooled Death is a short 3D animation adapting a tale from Ifá mythology. When Iku — death — roams the earth taking lives before their time, the mischievous Ibeji twins, Taiwo and Kehinde, devise a plan to stop him: luring him into the forest and trapping him in the hypnotic rhythm of a talking drum. Taking turns behind a bush to keep the beat unbroken, they force Iku to dance for days until, exhausted, he surrenders and vows never again to take a life before its time.

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Visually, the film pairs the exaggerated, whimsical proportions of Western animation with the high-contrast colour and painterly texture of traditional Nigerian art, built through custom toon shaders in Blender. It's an attempt to preserve and reinterpret Yoruba oral tradition for a modern audience — sitting alongside the growing wave of African-mythology storytelling in animation today.