For Wikipedia’s 25th birthday, its mascot Baby Globe needed to come to life inside real Wikipedia pages: hand-drawn, imperfect and full of character.
Wikimedia asked for its Baby Globe Origin Story storyboard to become a short film. The story and mascot came from the client, along with strict rules: hand-drawn frames at 8 FPS, mascot guidelines respected, and no AI-generated artwork in the final film. All on a compressed timeline.
We split the work in two: an editorial pass to lock timing and pacing using real Wikipedia layouts, then a focused animation phase.
Making the big decisions early and cheaply let the illustrator spend their time where it mattered most: on the character.
To speed up iteration, generative AI produced rough wireframe motion at 8 FPS, used internally as frame guides.
The illustrator then drew every final frame by hand over those guides, in full compliance with the mascot guidelines. AI helped with the timing; people made all the art.
