What does my kid do in Sketchling?

Sketchling is Kubrio's animation studio, and the work starts on paper. Your kid thinks up a short story, draws its hero by hand, then draws six storyboard panels — one per scene — and photographs each one. They pick an art style, and the app renders their rough drawings into that style and animates them into a single film that flows scene to scene. The drawings your kid makes are the movie: the story, the hero, and every panel are theirs. The app's job is to bring those drawings to life — which is exactly why we keep the paper drawings loose and quick, so the finished film feels like a payoff.

On the sprint calendar this is the Animator week — sprints are named for the role your kid steps into; the Studio shows the app itself (Sketchling).

What your kid actually does, step by step

1. Thinks up the story. Your kid names the movie and decides what happens — a character, a moment, a small adventure. The idea is theirs; nothing is generated for them here.
2. Draws the hero. On paper, with a pencil or marker, your kid draws their main character, then snaps a photo. The app turns that drawing into a model sheet — a reference of their hero, the way real animators make one — so the same character holds together across every scene.
3. Picks a style. Your kid taps an art style and sees their own hero rendered in each look, then chooses the one they want for the whole film.
4. Draws the storyboard. Your kid draws six scenes on paper — beginning, middle, and end — and photographs each panel. Directors plan a film this way before they animate, and the panels can stay simple: one clear moment per scene.
5. Reviews and improves. Your kid sees each panel rendered into their chosen style next to their original drawing, and can redraw or re-shoot any scene that didn't land, or add a scene, until the storyboard is right.
6. Animates. With one press, the crew films every scene, adding the motion that carries each panel to the next so the six drawings become one continuous movie.
7. Premieres. Your kid watches the finished film and can send it to Demo Day.

What they finish with

Your kid ends with a finished animated film built from their own drawings — a real thing with their name on it, not a worksheet and not a picture the computer made instead of them. The film lands in their Kubrio portfolio and shows automatically in the internal Kubrio Gallery. During a sprint, finished films are shown at Demo Week, and your kid can choose to give any film its own public page at kubrio.com/made — see Sharing and privacy. Every finished film earns a medal when it's premiered.

The AI's role

The app renders and animates; your kid draws and directs. Your kid draws the hero and all six storyboard panels by hand — that hand-drawn work is the source, and it decides what every scene is. From those drawings the app makes a clean model sheet of the hero, renders each rough panel into the art style your kid chose, and adds the motion that turns six still panels into one flowing film. It reacts to what your kid made rather than inventing its own story — if your kid redraws a panel, that scene changes with it, because the drawings are the source of truth. Kubrio's AI Crew can react to the work and cheer specific choices, but the story, the hero, and the panels are your kid's.

What parents see

You see the finished films in your child's portfolio, and during a sprint you get them in your weekly update from Claire. Because your kid draws on paper first, a lot of the work happens off the device — pencil, paper, and their own imagination — and then comes back to be brought to life. Your kid decides what hangs in the internal Kubrio Gallery and whether a film gets its own public page; you can always remove a public link.