NCAD AI for Artists Workshop · Week 06

Animation and Story

Characters, Worlds, Continuity, and Previsualization

Animation/illustration-heavy room. The week traditional craft gets its revenge.

60-second recap

The deal

AI for friction, humans for meaning.
Raw output is never finished work.
Verify before trusting. Disclose where it matters.
Skepticism welcome when specific.

Standing recap.

Today

Today's promise

A one-scene animation packet — and a trained eye for the drift errors generative pipelines pay people to catch.

"Character brief, model sheet, beats, continuity bible. Plus a new professional reflex."

This week's twist

Generative tools have a continuity problem

So model sheets and continuity bibles — the oldest disciplines in animation — just became the QA layer of the newest pipelines.

Your traditional training got MORE valuable.

The thesis slide. Let it land with the skeptics especially.

Deliverable

You will leave with

A one-scene animation packet:
character brief (by interview) · model sheet or thumbnails · 3–5 beat list · continuity bible entry

Show a finished packet example for 20 seconds.

Today's map

Story interrogation + character briefs — 40 min
What stays human (a master draws) — 10 min
Demo: lighthouse keeper, brief → sheet → cop → bible — 40 min
Lab: Continuity Cop on YOUR character — 70 min
Share: drift trophies — 40 min

Breaks protected.

Part 1

AI as story interrogator, not story author

~0:10.

The weak move

"Write me a story about a lighthouse keeper."

→ generic three-act sludge. Everyone gets the same one.

Read 3 lines of prepared sludge output, stop mid-sentence, look at the room.

The strong move

Make it ask YOU questions

"Interview me about this character — one question at a time — hunting for what I haven't decided yet."

Your answers are the authorship.

"Its questions surface holes you didn't know you had. Your answers do the designing."

Warning

The yes-and machine

It will enthusiastically extend your worst idea.
It will sand your weirdest idea into screenplay formula.

Keep the weird. The weird is the value.

"The weird detail is the only thing the average can't contain." Returns in critique.

Where story-AI earns it

Genuinely useful

Structure audits — "where does my second act sag?"
Option generation — "five ways this scene could end"
Interview mode — questions that find your holes

Author: you. Always.

Recipes in handout.

Part 1, continued

Character briefs

Design thinking in document form

~0:22.

The brief that works

Five parts

Silhouette-first — recognizable as a black shape?
5 traits readable in POSE — not dialogue
Costume: 3 signature details — never change
The prop they're never without
Avoid list — the clichés circling this type

"With AI: the source of truth every generation run is checked against."

The heart of the week

The continuity problem

~0:30.

The evidence

Generate the same character four times

Buttons migrate. Proportions wander. The prop vanishes.

Not a bug being patched soon — a structural weakness.

Show two prepared drifting views side by side NOW — visual proof before the claim.

The plot twist

Animation solved this 90 years ago

Model sheets. Turnarounds. Continuity bibles.

In an AI pipeline these stop being museum pieces.
They're the QA layer.

"Studios hire people who catch and fix drift. Trained eyes. Yours, after today."

The kit

The three artifacts

Model sheet — defines what's true

Continuity bible — what must be verified, per shot

The Cop pass — hunting drift before the audience does

Today's lab builds all three.

And quickly

Beats, fast

Beat = one unit of story change.
AI drafts structures. You choose what the scene is about.

Beat board: staging clarity beats rendering.
Animatic: the cheapest place to find the 4 extra seconds.

Week 5 timing audit applies. Week 10 adds temp VO.

Break

Break — 10 minutes

Back: a master draws.

Queue the Keane video.

Video

What stays human

Watch a master draw

Play 2–3 minutes — Glen Keane (Ariel, the Beast) drawing at life size. Watch where the decisions happen: in the hand, in contact with the work.

Then the argument, next slide.

Said precisely

Not sentimentality — a job description

Acting choices. Timing and spacing. Weight. Appeal.
The 2% of a pose that makes it THAT character.

This course never points AI at those — nothing else takes direction at that resolution.

Blaise's measured take linked on week page for the evening.

Demo

The lighthouse keeper

Brief → Sheet → Cop → Bible

~1:10. Prompts from DEMOS file. Prepared drifting set on standby.

Demo · move 1

Brief, by interview

She curates a museum of things the sea returned

The model asks me 3 questions. My answers change her.

Answer with prepared answers; narrate: "My answers are doing the designing. Watch the brief change."

Demo · move 2

The sheet prompt

Front, ¾, side · neutral pose · flat colour

+ the 6 details that must stay identical.

Highlight the 6 details — they're the cop pass's checklist.

Demo · move 3

Continuity Cop, live

Find the drift before I do.

Four views, side by side.

The room hunts. Circle each find in red. Typical haul: buttons, vanished prop, proportions, palette. Celebrate catches by name.

Demo · move 4

The bible

Errors → per-shot checklist

silhouette/proportions · costume · props · colour

A real industry artifact. AI just made it load-bearing again.

Read it aloud — under 12 lines. Tie-off: "Brief → sheet → cop → bible. Any character, forever."

Break

Break — 10 minutes

Lab next: your character.

Standing seed slide staged.

Lab · 70 minutes

Continuity Cop

Brief by interview (20) → Sheet (15) → Cop pass (15) → Bible + packet (20)

Standing seed: a Dublin bus inspector who collects forgotten umbrellas and gives them names

Parts + times on board.

Lab · step 1

20 min

Brief by interview

Run the interviewer. Answer every question yourself, specifically.

The brief is assessed on its specificity — its questions, YOUR answers.

Circulate for wholesale-acceptance: "That's its answer. What's yours?"

Lab · steps 2–3

30 min

Sheet, then hunt

Sheet: generate turnarounds — or 3 hand-drawn thumbnails — or the prepared set.

Cop pass: minimum 3 errors annotated. Then trade with a neighbour — find one error in theirs.

The trade is where the skill generalizes. Hand-drawn = "frankly the superior version."

Lab · step 4

20 min

Bible + packet

Bible entry: under 12 lines, grouped.

Packet = brief + sheet + 3–5 beats + bible.

Beat list can be quick — the optioner recipe is in the handout.

Always available

Alternative

Zero-generation track

Prepared drifting set for the cop pass · brief, beats, bible are text · sheet = 3 hand-drawn thumbnails.

Fully equal. Arguably better.

Mean it.

Share-out · 30 min

Drift trophies

Sneakiest catch of the day goes first.

Then packets: read your avoid list, show your sheet.
Room runs the silhouette test: would this read as a black shape?

One zero-gen packet gets equal billing, deliberately.

Every week

Integrity check

This week's four

Whose answers built the character?
Yours — or a franchise design with serial numbers filed off?
Generated views in portfolio → "design and brief mine; views generated, then corrected"
Classmates' characters/likenesses: never without permission

#2: "Models drift toward famous designs — training data showing. Hunt it like drift."

Reflection

Write 4 lines

The interview question that changed your character most
The drift error that would have cost the most to miss
The one detail the average could never contain
File the packet — Week 9 builds the set; Week 10 animatics it

Two quiet minutes.

Next Wednesday

Graphic Design and Branding

Systems, layouts, copy — and why design judgment is the thing clients actually buy.

Bring a micro-brand idea: a society, a pop-up, your band.

End on time; corridor questions after.

Tonight, optional

Go deeper

Glen Keane — Step into the Page (full, on the week page)
Aaron Blaise — AI Animation Reacts
The Animator's Survival Kit — the canon
Cut a 20s animatic from your beat board

Final slide stays up while people pack.