DBDA Trailer Animate

Short answer: there is no required level!

Long answer: while we call this an animation project you do not need to be a seasoned animator, or even an animator in general.

If artists want to join and do a frame for frame redrawing of a section that’s perfectly acceptable too! If people who feel comfortable and confident with animation want to take their section and animate it on their own terms that’s awesome!

The only restrictions with any way someone makes their scenes is that they match the timing of the original scene and that the sizing is correct.

Heck if someone wants to do stop motion we’d be happy to work with them!

Because at the end of the day and at the end of the project this is about sharing and celebrating our love for a show, and putting a little piece of us back into it!

If you signed up to partake in the trailer animation project please check your message and or emails!

Scenes are getting prepared to be assigned within this coming week!

And while we don’t plan to officially close the sign up form, once scenes are assigned any new comers will have limited scenes to choose from!

So if you want a chance are your favorite scene please sign up within the next few days! Otherwise we’ll keep an eye on the sign up for anyone who many wanna join later (as we still have about 40 extra scenes to share)

The hope is to give each artist at least two sections to animate (either a frame for frame redraw, redrawing the bare minimum frames of about 12 frames per second, stop motion, freeform, whatever).

Some sections have a lot of frames (the most being 74) and others have only 6 frames. So knowing the exact number of frames an artist gets is hard to state at this moment since we’re not sure.

Of course if an artist wishes to only take on the bare minimum or doesn’t want to take on a huge animation section we will take that into consideration. We don’t want any artist feeling overwhelmed. And we’re also happy to work with artists to figure out how to animate if they aren’t confident on doing so.

And to piggy back off that, we do plan to assign one section/scene to an artist unless specifically requesting that scene to be cut and shared.

So each artist will be in charge of animating the full scene assigned to them.

(We’ll be starting doling out scenes at the beginning of the new year!)

This sign up form features questions about the scenes to focus on and helps us determine who may want what!

No but in all serious, despite being overwhelmed with bots we do have about 25 interested in this project which is awesome! And enough that we feel confident moving forward with the Trailer Animation!

So what are the next steps?

We have another form that we’d like to ask you all to fill out. It features pertinent information as well as asking for your thoughts on the scenes we focus on.

If you want to participate please fill this form out. We’ll be leaving it open for a few weeks!

So fun fact: the Dead Boy Detectives trailer as a whole is 3855 frames.

We are not doing all of those frames. We do have sections of the trailer picked out for potential animation/redraw.

That total is 2320.

This isn’t the set in stone number. We will be picking official scenes once we know how many people we have to help. But most participants will likely have two sections given to them with 30ish frames total.

Now I know they sounds like a lot and it is. But keep in mind these are not random frames, but sequential. And a lot of sections have small movement.

We’re also not going to force artists to do more than possible, but that still means at least 10 frames for a person to do (the smallest amounts of frames a section has is 6)

We’re also willing to work with artists if they want to try and animate their sections at their own style. Removing frames to change the rate. So that could cut down on technical frames.

We don’t have a hard deadline for this project specifically cause we wanted to gauge how many people were interested first.

We want to make sure to provide artists with enough time to complete their frames/sections without burning them out.

As artists ourselves we know that life happens as does burnout. And we want to not add to that.

Currently the plan is to request all frames/sections to be finished and turned in by October 31st, 2026.

If you’re interested in helping out/joining our little fandom animation project, please fill out the interest form!

And if you have any questions, please let us know!

This is going to be a little thread of information for the project! We’ll add to it based off of questions or concerns people bring to us!

First: Deadlines

As of right now we are planning to close the Interest Check form on November 30th.

As for when the frames would be due, we’re thinking October 31st, 2026 but that could be up for change too depending on artists.

(We’re hoping to post the final product November 11, 2026 which is 3 years after the original trailer was posted)

Second: The Frame Division

As of now we’re not certain if we’re going to assign whole sections to people or just select frames to redraw.

If we do assign select frames, they will be sequential instead of random

We have divided up the trailer in sections but some have a lot of frames and we want to be thoughtful of artists time and lives outside of the fandom.

(All artists will also get at least one frame from the DBDA logo at the end of the trailer as well)

Lastly (for now): Scope of the Project

The plan for this project is to animate sections of the trailer. We do not plan to animate the whole thing (which is a little over 4000 frames) but preselected sections.

Currently we have divided the trailer into 105 potential sections.

If you’re interested in participating in this animation project, please feel out the form!

And if you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know!

We have an interest form open for a new fandom project!

We all know the iconic trailer for Dead Boy Detectives. Well what if we broke that trailer into bits and pieces and animated a few snippets as a fandom? Combining the classic trailer with fandom artists and bringing our own touches to the trailer.

As of right now this project is just in the early phases. We are launching this interest check to see if it’s something others would even want to try.

So if this idea even slightly interests you, please fill out the form!

And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!