Johnny - Warriors OC Animatic

Content Warnings for death, decay, and injury

I decided to make my first warriors OCs a few months ago for kicks and giggles and now I’m INVESTED

I’ve been working on this one for a while now! I made the rough version of this video a few months ago, and decided I wanted to try and polish it up a bit. Then, polishing it up turned into... this, I guess! If you notice points where the style of the lineart or designs of the characters shift a bit... those are the points where I picked the project back up again, haha!

Characters are as follows:
Hawkpaw (white w/ black spots)
Puddlepaw (fluffy with dark face/paws/tail)
Whitepaw (white streak on nose)
Mudpaw (“Johnny” aka the one with the black stripes)
Unnamed mentor (half n’ half w/ white)

So the basic storyline here starts with a group of apprentices: Hawkpaw, Puddlepaw, and Whitepaw. Once, when out hunting (i.e. playing), they happen upon a tree that smells of rot. When they decide to dig up whatever has died there, they happen upon a... stash of mutilated birds? They are appropriately confused.

At the same time, we see flashes of the recent past. Mudpaw’s mentor is kiiind of a (massive) jerk, and takes out a lot of aggression on him. As a result, Mudpaw ends up feeling powerless in his situation, and takes out his aggression out on the prey he catches. When that aggression gets to be too much, and the kill is not enough, he mutilates his catches, and then buried the evidence. His clan doesn’t realize just how much hate and resentment he’s bottling up, and this bottled aggression and resentment drives a rift between himself and his clanmates.

EDIT: as they are no longer indicative of the story's direction, I removed the following sentences from the story summary!

[ If left unchecked, he might move on to bigger prey...

Anyway what I’m saying here is that there’s a growing potential serial killer in their clan and no one realizes it. ]

[JANKYJACKAL]

Before it was revealed that there was actually prey under the dirt beneath the tree, , I thought mudpaw's body would just be laying there like 😃🖐️ KAKSK

[Nogiistune]

Omg I thought they were going to dig up his body, I'm so happy im wrong

[mrraow]

Finally a potential serial killer cat! I've wanted someone to do this for so long lol

[belessstrange]

Plot twist: the crow was just trying to inform them about Johnny

[garden_creature]

Honestly, watching this after watching your fantastic creation "The Garden", I felt such a unique sense of impending horror not knowing for sure what those apprentices were going to dig up. Your ability to build up suspense without any dialogue is incredibly impressive to me. This is incredible!

[mooneatsworms]

not even halfway through and i love all of your characters.

[tesha]

This is beautiful!!! The ending of that last shot gave me chills. I love the lighting especially, and I would love to see what happens with Mudpaw in the future. A serial killer type of storyline for wc is so dark but so interesting.

[squirtle_]

man i love the story of mudpaw and his silent resentment towards his mentor and how he takes out all his anger on the prey he catches, its so intriguing

[galladefan]

1:57 i'm so happy that you cut out the "red as an indian skin" a lot of people wouldn't do that nowadays

[itsmesir]

Instant goose bumps at that death glare from "Johny" your art style is so gorgeous not to mention your back grounds! Your art is stunning!!

[titanofthedepths]

I love American Murder Song, its neat to see someone use their music for an animatic! Especially one so well done!

[Countryoncrack]

The art, proportions, skill, story, sheer beauty and heart felt work makes this my favorite PMV of all time, keep up the glorious work!

[averypolitecat]

This is absolutely terrible


















that you only have 627 subs. I can’t believe what I just watched, its so amazing that I broke the replay button. It would be cool if you made a sequel to this ngl.

[illuxtre]

This is just delightful! The song choice, the art, the pacing is so fun to watch!
I loved how the apprentices took a few lines to start digging (and the gloomy story showed in between!) It builds up and while there's no lines I can nearly hear them playing and joking around from their expressions! This is so nice

[yarg]

I just wanna let u know all your warrior cat ocs are so pettable like if i saw any of these kitties on the street i would pet them

[oneditzybrunnette]

When you say potential, do you mean “he’s definitely gonna do it” or “I’m actually on the fence”?

[PrincePrince-epxf]

I came here from “emo cat has anger issues” and I gotta say I love your content. What I’ve seen of your characters and story is really cool and I love the way you portray emotion in poses as well as the face and even body language.

[QuillWorks]

I don’t comment on videos much (although I’m trying to more) but I keep coming back to this video, I really love it that much. Your art style is so appealing to look at, especially how you do your line art, and I love your character designs! And of course the prospect of a serial killer in the clans is fascinating, and I love how you dove into the psychology of a potential serial killer with Mudpaw’s abuse at the hands (paws?) of his mentor, isolation from the other apprentices, and mutilation of crows. I also like how you characterized the other three apprentices. They come off as a tight nit clique of sorts that, while not outright mean to Mudpaw (that I know of), certainly don’t pay enough attention to realize what’s going on with him. Another thing that sticks out to me is the organization of the scenes, how it flips back and forth leaving you in suspense of what the three apprentices will find buried beneath the tree. I’d love to see more about this character in the future!
P.S. Thanks for introducing me to this song. It’s been caught in my head for the past two days!

[Shsy]

I have to say, I greatly appreciate u changing the lyrics “Feathers as red as an Indians skin” to “Feathers as red and eyes and skin” or something. Make some happy that even tho it’s a small PMV, ur still respectful, and unwilling to use that terminology and relation.

Edit : Ok y’all, I commented this like a year ago. I did *not* mean it to become a debate topic of controversy. A: apologies for anything I made have gotten incorrect/inaccurate about my explanation below about this comment. B: thank you to the actual Native’s who were kind enough to make clarifications. C: can we just drop this now? Unless you’re genuinely interested in the topic. This is a comment on a video about cat murder. Just appreciate the art.

[aster-iix]

I've gotta thank you for introducing me to both american murder song and the crane wives, as now both of them make up the majority of my most listened songs, ,

aside from that! Very eager to follow along with lil mudpaw's story^^