2D Animation for Children’s Stories

Short, hand-drawn animation for the places a picture book has to move: book trailers, read-along clips, explainer shorts for teaching material, and character animation for reels. Drawn by the same illustrators who draw the books, so the characters arrive on screen as themselves.

Animation from the studio

Six pieces drawn by the studio’s own illustrators. Tap one to play — nothing downloads until you do.

Character animation · 6sBear and the wandOne character on a clean background, drawn on twos. The format that sits in a reel or marks a page turn.

Character animation · 7sBug and the shellA second character from the same cast, handled the same way, so the two cut together.

Character animation · 5sA parcel arrivesCharacter and prop in one short beat: approach, climb in, find what is inside.

Character introduction · 14sMeet BillyA longer vertical cut with on-screen captions, built to introduce a cast rather than tell a story.

Scene animation · 14sBug & Bear on the roadA moving background with the camera travelling, rather than a character on a held frame.

Title card · 10sThe Big Garden GigA cover brought up with lights and small movement — the opening of a trailer rather than a scene.

What you can commission

Book trailers

A short piece of motion for a launch, a listing or an author page, cut from the book’s own artwork.

Read-along and page-turn clips

Spreads brought to life gently — a character blinking, a boat rocking — for read-along video or a digital edition.

Character animation for reels

Short vertical clips of your cast for Instagram, TikTok or a publisher’s feed.

Explainer shorts

A sequence that teaches one thing, for classroom material, a learning app or a crowdfunding page.

Animation starts where a storyboard ends

This is the part authors most often skip, and it is the part that decides whether the finished clip works. A storyboard settles what happens and in what order. An animatic — the board timed, so each panel holds for as long as it will hold on screen — settles pacing. Both are fast to redraw. Animated frames are not.

Storyboarding is already the largest single body of work in this studio’s portfolio, which is why animation sits naturally beside it rather than apart from it. If you want to read about that stage first, start with storyboarding for children’s books.

How it runs

The script, manuscript or briefWhat the clip has to do, who it is for, and where it will play.
StoryboardThe whole thing drawn as stills, so the order and the shots are agreed before anything moves.
AnimaticThe board timed to length. This is where pacing problems surface, while they are still cheap.
AnimationThe frames drawn and the motion built, with the cast on model throughout.
Final filesDelivered at the size and format the destination platform needs.

What changes the price

Length. Seconds are the unit here, not pages.
How much of the frame moves. A character blinking in a held scene and a full walk cycle across a moving background are different orders of work.
How many characters are on screen, and how often.
Whether the artwork exists. Covered below.

If we illustrated the book, you are most of the way there. The cast already has turnarounds and expressions, the backgrounds are already painted, and the files are already layered the way animation needs them. Starting from a book we drew is substantially less work than starting from a flattened image, and the quote reflects that.

Quoted per project

There is no price list, for the same reason there is not one for the books: a fifteen-second trailer cut from existing artwork and a ninety-second explainer drawn from nothing are not the same job. Tell us what you have in mind, what artwork already exists, and where it will be used, and we will come back with a firm quote within one business day.

Questions about animation

Do I need a storyboard before you can animate anything?

Yes, and it is the cheapest part of the job to change. A board settles what happens in what order; an animatic settles how long each beat lasts. Both are quick to redraw. Animation is not. If you already have a board, send it — we do not need to redraw it to work from it.

Can you animate illustrations you did not draw?

Usually, but it depends on how the artwork was built. A flattened image has to be cut apart and repainted before anything can move, which is real work and shows up in the quote. Layered files are straightforward. Send a sample and we will tell you honestly which of the two you have.

What format do I get?

Tell us where it will be used — a trailer on an Amazon listing, a reel on Instagram, a clip playing on a classroom screen — and the files are delivered in the size, aspect ratio and format that platform expects.

Who owns the finished animation?

You do, in full, on final payment, including commercial use. If the clip is recut, re-versioned for another platform or used in an advertisement later, nothing further is owed to us.

Is any of it AI-generated?

No, at no stage. The frames are drawn by hand by our own illustrators, sketched digitally in Procreate, in the same way the books are.