Storyboarding: An Essential Blueprint for Animated Storytelling

Storyboarding is more than just planning scenes—it’s storytelling in its rawest, most honest form. I didn’t always realize how powerful it was, but as someone who’s obsessed with animation, I’ve come to see storyboarding as the backbone of everything I love about the topic. It's what connects ideas to emotion, humor to timing, and most importantly, creators to their audience.

This hit me especially hard while working on Jetjitsu, my own passion project. It’s a futuristic animated series I’ve been developing, set in a city called Synergia, where martial arts meets street culture. It aims to be a world full of imagery, rhythm, and layered storytelling, and none of it could exist without storyboarding.

Creating Jetjitsu made me appreciate just how much storyboards shape not only the look of a scene, but its soul. Every energy burst, character expression, and camera angle has to be thought out ahead of time. I found myself channeling everything I learned from two of my biggest animation influences: J.G. Quintel and Genndy Tartakovsky.

J.G. Quintel’s work, especially on Regular Show, taught me how much personality can live in pacing. His storyboards are full of quick cuts, exaggerated faces, and awkward pauses that turn into comedy gold. When I storyboard scenes for Jetjitsu, especially with my characters in high-stakes situations, I always think, “How would Quintel pitch this?” That influence is huge in how I balance tension and humor in my story. 

Then there’s Genndy Tartakovsky—arguably one of the greatest at letting visuals speak louder than words. Shows like Samurai Jack or Primal rely on movement and silence to say everything. In Jetjitsu, there’s a character named Ni.ow3 who barely talks but says a lot with presence. Designing his storyboard sequences, especially when he moves with eerie grace or detaches his head like a spirit (yeah, you read that right), was totally inspired by Tartakovsky’s visual language. Clean frames. Slow tension. Impactful motion.

And it’s not just about emulating the pros. It’s about learning from their methods and discovering my own style along the way. I started using visual “motifs” in Jetjitsu, like glowing energy sigils that appear mid-air during combat, to represent deeper parts of each character’s identity. That kind of symbolic visual storytelling? Definitely something I picked up from watching how Genndy and Quintel use their boards as a language.

What I’ve realized is that storyboarding isn’t just a technical step. It’s a conversation between the creator and the story. It forces you to ask, “What does this moment feel like?” and “How can I show that with just a sketch?” And when you're building a world like Jetjitsu, where rebellion is art and every fight is a message, and storyboards are the first place that spirit gets to breathe.

So yes, storyboarding is essential. Not just in the production pipeline but in the journey of any creator finding their voice. Whether you’re working on a hit show or sketching a passion project after class like I do, storyboarding is where imagination gets disciplined, shaped, and transformed into something others can feel. And for me, it’s where Jetjitsu was truly born.