Robert Valley

Robert Valley
Background Information
Gender	Male
Age	~56
Born	1969 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation(s)	Animator • Illustrator • Director
Years Active	1992 — present
Additional Information
Website	Instagram

Robert Valley is a Canadian animator and director, whose distinct visual style was inspired by Jamie Hewlett.

Role in Gorillaz

Robert worked as a 2D animator on all Phase 2 music videos, and as the 2D animation director on the videos for On Melancholy Hill and Saturnz Barz. He also co-directed all of the Plastic Beach idents with Jamie. In 2022, he contributed his retelling of D-Day to The Gorillaz Art Book. In February 2025, Valley confirmed that he was working with Gorillaz on something.

Career

Valley graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design^W in 1992, after which he moved to San Francisco. There, in 1994, he worked with Peter Chung^W on the storyboards for later episodes of Æon Flux^W, an experience which greatly influenced his style. In 1995, he founded the animation studio Maverix Studio, which operated until 2011. In 2002, he created his own brand, Massive Swerve, encompassing comics and animation.

In 1999, Valley went freelance and collaborated with Passion Pictures on Gorillaz music videos and various shorts for projects such as The Beatles: Rock Band^W, Dance Central^W, and DC Nation's Wonder Woman^W. He also did character designs for Tron: Uprising^W and Motorcity^W. In 2013, he directed the animated film Shinjuku, which was based on a 2010 graphic novel by Christopher 'Mink' Morrison^W and Yoshitaka Amano^W.

He received an Academy Award nomination for his work on Pear Cider and Cigarettes^W, and directed three episodes, 'Zima Blue', 'ICE', and '400 Boys' for the animated Netflix^W series Love, Death & Robots^W.

Gallery

August 15th 1997 ‘D-Day’ *Retold by Robert Valley Sept. 29 2021, from The Gorillaz Art Book

Snoop Dogg by Valley, from The Gorillaz Art Book