Cartoon short

A short cartoon where a character wants something, something happens, and they react. Everything is drawn in Canvas 2D inside one window.renderAt(t) page, so the make-video contract applies: every frame is a pure function of t.

The skill has two halves. The method (storyboarding by reads, the rig, acted emotion changes, boil that stays deterministic, the review loop) applies to every cartoon. The look it documents (flat colour, boiling ink, paper grain) is one default, not a requirement: chalk on a blackboard, cut paper, marker on lined paper, a single-colour brush line or flat poster shapes all work with the same method.

starter.html is a tested 6-second shot that shows the techniques working together: boil seeding, the paint recipe, emotions(), jump(), iris transitions. Read it for how each technique is built. Don't reuse its character, meadow, palette or gag; those come from the seed and the user's idea.

0. Seed the idea

Before you design anything, draw a random seed so this cartoon doesn't come out like the last one. If an apply-randomness skill is available, use it. Otherwise:

LC_ALL=C tr -dc 'A-Za-z0-9' < /dev/urandom | head -c 256; echo

Find a few verifiable patterns in the string (a digit run, a repeated fragment, a cluster of capitals, a symmetry) and let them choose between options you write down first: three character silhouettes, three worlds, three loglines, and two or three looks (the ink-and-paint default among them). Keep what the user asked for fixed; the seed only decides what they left open. Put the seed and a one-line pattern → choice map at the top of STORYBOARD.md.

Code-drawn characters are a deliberate style: simple, iconic shapes with boiling ink. They don't replace a real illustration. If the brief needs a detailed or realistic character, say so and ask for artwork.