What is a Motion Comic ?

[Article updated in May 2024]

Definition

A Motion Comic is a variation of Motion Design that originates from the world of video games and comic books.

Kryxivia, a trailer for a video game, created as a Motion Comic, created by Hollymotion

An Illustrated Artistic Direction

It’s an illustrated style of Motion Design, particularly suited for storytelling: it truly shines when it comes to telling captivating stories! The Motion Comic synthesizes the codes of cinema, comic books, and video games, all of which share the ability to immerse you in a story through a blend of visuals, text, narration, and music. It’s a multidisciplinary art form that serves your stories and projects.

It differs from Motion Graphic Design, which has graphic origins and is more suited for animating vector shapes and text.

🔹 Read our article about Motion Design

Video Examples

To illustrate, here are other examples of Motion Comic creations.

An example of Motion Comic in a reference video game: World of Warcraft

The Ingredients of a Motion Comic

The basic elements of Motion Comic animation are:

  • The drawings, of course
  • A parallax effect with a traveling camera. When the camera moves, the entire scenery animates in perspective.
  • Special effects (SFX) added to the universe: dust, lightning, smoke…
  • And in the middle, an action with a character or an object.
  • If necessary, it can be animated frame by frame. This is a more complex animation that requires more work from the artists.

When this last element is present, our video then becomes what is called traditional animation. This is the type of animation that has existed for a century in cinema and television. This shows how many connections there are between all these graphic arts.

A making-of a Motion Comic video, created by Hollymotion

In Conclusion

So, what distinguishes a Motion Comic from animated cinema? Animated cinema involves lengthy production processes, larger teams, and very high budgets.

A Motion Comic film, on the other hand, requires a smaller team, lighter resources, quicker turnaround times, but retains an intact visual ambition.

Our Motion Comic Productions

Here is a short montage of our Motion Comic productions. We work in advertising, video games, and brand content/snack content videos.

Are you interested in Motion Comics?

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