The Little Jamurai
Animatic

One of my favorite steps in creating a cartoon is the animatic stage.This is where you make a crude version of the cartoon in order to work through the pacing, angles and such.

This animatic for The Little Jamurai (second of 4 Jamurai toons I made with creator Iceberg Slick) is as crudely done as they come. Made with circles and rectangles, because the characters hadn't been designed yet, and my voice on the built in computer mike, this piece was how I originally conceived the cartoon. I sent the animatic to Iceberg Slick, who had created the original Jamurai, who then designed characters that fit how he interpreted the animatic, and the results can be seen in the final version.

If you're thinking of trying your hand at animation, I recommend working this way. It really helps puts your ideas into focus. You'll see in the final version, there were several things that didn't survive past the animatic stage.