Once Upon a December- Alice Madness Returns Fan Animation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- AMERICAN MCGEE PATREON: / americanmcgee
Although 2020 was a crazy year, we managed to take some advantage of it. This amazing Alice Madness Returns fan animation was done in four hands using our free time and somehow we managed to finish it at the turn of the year. And this is just a project of many to come, the list is long!
Alice Madness Returns is a awesome game made by American Mcgee and the Spicy Horse team, and has beautiful paper cut like animations for the 2D cutscenes, so we decided it was the perfect fit for us to start doing our indie animations, since our style is very heavy on paper puppets.
If you like this cartoon short, please check out our other fan animations and our first indie animations on the channel!
If you want to know more how we did this project, check out our making off series!
th-cam.com/video/M_gxNyxDAdA/w-d-xo.html
If you like our paper style animation, check out our first original short animation!
th-cam.com/video/m5IAoAXQn48/w-d-xo.html
Ok so I haven't played the game BUT this animation is so well done I can't- the art style to the aesthetic to the story telling, it's all so well! TH-cam should really put your animation in people's recommendations,it very underrated! I honestly found you though your comment
I'm so happy you liked it! Thank you so much ^^ I usually don't promote my stuff on youtube comments, but I worked on this animation over nine months, so I'm really proud of it >u<
I actually started playing it because the cutscenes had an art style similar to the animations I was making at the moment, but the game is really good. I found a bit challenging telling the game's story in only 3 minutes, but I think it went well ^^
Again, thank you a lot to like my stuff. I have a list of animations that I liked to do, testing some other arts styles and all, but have no idea when the next project will be finished =\
This looks like this was actually in the game!
Like as a side short that you could unlock.
Buddy, this is professional level work, you'll go further then most!!!
keep it up!!.
Thank you! This comment really make our day every time we read it! We did have the intention to make the animation as faithful to the game's aesthetics as possible, and we really wanted to make profissonal level indie animations on youtube. This kinda is the major goal of this channel. Alice was the first animation done with this goal, so to think that we get it in the first try is awesome :)
This has such a creepy aesthetic I really like it
Thank you! ^^ I really wanted to make a Alice fan animation because this game's cutscenes has similarities with my usual aesthetic, so make a new take of the game was soooo fun!
I also like the attention to detail of Dinah calm before Elizabeth’s fate when Alice first wakes up but (Dinah) is hissing when Alice cowering in bed. I missed it at first but I appreciate it upon repeats. Plus it could be seen as her protecting Alice.
I love this! Capture the essence of the game perfectly!!
Thank you a lot!!! I did my best to represent the soul/vibe of it ^^
I love the delivery of your concept! I like that you made the song a bit of discord or untuned as it progresses till Alice made her choice of pushing the doctor in his death. This, gave her peace of mind of about her family's death. You really gave me goosebumps plus it's creppy which is good for a psychological game genre.
Thank you! We're really happy to know that you got goosebumps, it was our main goal with this animation! The music (the original, i mean) was already awesome and we always wanted to make a animation with it, but it was not creepy enouth to this animation, so we needed to make a bit of remixing.
-and, it was worth it ?
-every damn second!
You bet it did!
This is the most underrated thing I’ve seen. There’s clearly so much work put into this and there are less than 200 likes? That’s absurd, you deserve so much more. I’ve never played the game because it seems a little _too_ creepy for my liking, but I love the unique Wonderland aesthetic 😍
Thank you! We're now under 20k views, so i think that we're not so underrated, even if took almost 1,5 years to get it :) We did really put a lot of work in it, it took 9 month of production, all the backgrounds and puppets were draw and inked by hand, and than digitally colored. Each expression, hand or position was a different draw, so the're lots of pages of drawings. I don't think it would have been finished if I hadn't teamed up with my sister to finish the project, but in the end we ended up enjoying doing animation so much that we decided to open an indie homemade studio :) The game is awesome and is not really that creepy, is more a psycological thriller than actually horror. And if it get too stressful you can always mute the music, i swear, that soundtrack is responsible for almost all fo the tension, is really good.
This is absolutely amazing! The timing of the scenes is absolutely spot-on, and the artwork is (Pacha Just Right Meme). Great work!
hahahahaha thank you! The timing and pacing we fine tuned with the animatic (is kinda stick figures, but it work and that's what an animatic is supposed to do) and the artwork was almost all by hand (the drawing and inking, the coloring was digital because we're running out of time... And patience... And the hand was really hurting. The whole arm, actually.)
This is amazing, I'm really glad I found this, I love how you kept the art style from the game cinematics. In three minutes you were able to put the most important things from the game, thank you for making this and I hope you continue on making more amazing art, keep it up 🤍💚❤️
Thank you so much!!! About the art style, one of the things that made me want to do this short was because it matched with the animation style that I was developing >u< and I really like the game.
About making more, I actually have a pretty long list of projects that I want to post here (not all of them have this paper like aesthetic, but I think they will be nice anyways >u
@@meogatopreto Oh yes please do work on your projects, don't waste your talent. It’s one of my fav games and it was nice seeing your work, I can tell you've put time and effort into this, I hope you succeed in your other projects too ☺️
@@meogatopreto you need to put in through the Looking glass and what Alice found there the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Watching this after E.A rejected Alice Asylum 😭
HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TOT
@@meogatopreto corperate greed, would be my guess, American magee literally raised half the money and got hundreds of thousands of signatures and they said they weren't interested in the project. Its kind of depressing. Man has his name in the title and has 0 say in the franchise.
Wow, this is just wow, you managed to convey the mood, the game aesthetic I'm deadly impressed, why do you have so few views? It's just so unfair, you did the amazing job
Thank you! I was really inspired when i see the game's cutsceanes, i always loved the paper aesthetics so i really wanted to try something similar that wouldnt be stopmotion, and this was the result!
You captured the game's aesthetic very well, it's amazing!
Thanks! Actually, the cutscenes of the game we're REALLY close to our animation aesthetic, so sis was like "you know, I'm doing it!" and I just jump on board. And now we got a indie animation studio! Crazy, right?
This song + edgy reboot of _Alice in Wonderland_ = loads of awesome!
This animation was based on the game's cutscenes. We tried to make almost like if the animation would be a final cutscene that you unlock when you finish the game (it's not, but we can dream :D)
@@meogatopretoI'd be really satisfied with a game if this was the animation that played at its end.Very,very wonderfully done!!
as the song goes on it sounds like alices sister is singing! awesome stuff! ❤️
I know, right?! When doing the distortion of the audio the goal was to make the music grow more stressing and disturbing as the animation goes on. When we pressed play and realized that it sounded like the Red Queen/Elizabeth singing in the end, we were like "THAT'S IT!"
@@meogatopreto by the way, whos your favorite character from alice madness returns?
Is so good Alice Manning the restaurants😍🥰🥰. Is good The music Alice 🎶🎵❤
As someone who's both played and loves this game you have portrayed it VERY WELL i love all the themes you included even briefly like the train and the queen of hearts and also told a lot of the backstory. Big thumbs up to you 👍
Thank you! We really love this game and a BIG part of it is because of the backstory (And the art. And the characters. And the wonderland. And the dresses.) So we needed to put it in there!
This is absolutely amazing! ♥️♥️♥️
I'm really happy you liked! >U< thank you ^^
Oh man why does this have so Little views? You managed to perfectly capture the art style and animation style too, and the Song choice Is Just fascinating. Really Great, great work, you make me want ti replay the game like right now
Thank you a lot!!! I didn't have a song selected at the beginning of the project, but i'm really proud of the choice XD this one fitted like a glove.
@@meogatopreto I agree! It may seem like a weird choice in the beginning but it fits so well that it makes you remember that Alice is all about weirdness, so it's even more perfect :3
That ending transition😱. I can’t imagine how long this must have taken, this is marvelous!
I'm happy that you like it! Our goal was to make the viewers have goosebumps, i think we were sucessfull. Oh, and the whole animation was made in 9 months, is kinda our baby.
Caramba isso ficou perfeito, simplesmente sensacional, ótimo trabalho
Obrigada! :)
Una de las mejores escenas que haya visto antes!
Muchas Gracias!
Very nice, I'm a huge fan of this game. Absolutely love it, great job!
Thank you! ^^ i really like this game, there are so much details in the costumes and backgrounds that reflect the storytelling, and the animation is really beautifull. I keeped that in mind when doing the project, but the result was better than i expected >u
beautiful, simply beautiful! :')
Realmente te lucistes con esta animacion te quedo Muy Chula y Con la Cancion de Anastasia Te quedo Perfecta
Gracias!!! La canción de Anastácia marcó nuestra infancia y por alguna razón parecía perfecta para el proyecto. Hicimos algunas modificaciones, por supuesto, pero le quedó como anillo al dedo.
_Once upon a dismember._
Well, technically, nobody was dismembered in the end... Just crushed :) -L
That was great
Leaving this comment for the algorithm because this animation is criminily underrated. More people should see your art!
Thank you a lot for the help!!! feel free to share our art with your friends! we're actually really happy how much views we got this far, even if it's not super popular considering TH-cam's metrics, it's a nice start. -L
These games are incredible! And the animation is so beautiful!
Thank you! The games are truly amazing, so we tried to make an animation on par. I think we succeeded in it
Потрясающая анимация. Совместо с музыкой заставляет бегать мурашкам по коже
Thank you for this, it's amazingly well made, and is about my favorite game, with a song I deeply love. Bravo
Thanks! We're really glad you enjoyed it!
I heard American McGee is working on a new installment for the series called Alice Asylum, but I’m not sure when it’ll come out.
We heard of it too!!! If you want more information about it I think we left in the video's description the Patreon link to help develop the project, it is all crowdfunding. They release a lot of content about it on Instagram, and it's looking REALLY good. We're hyped about it, but the end result still don't have a release date last I saw it.
This is really impressive. I was entranced the whole time. Wow
The animation is amazing well done you're very talented ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you!!! Comments like this really make our day a happy one XD we're already producing another animation to launch in June 2023 (or at least that's the idea)
Holy shit that was amazing! I love the game and I love this very very well done
THIS IS A GORGEOUS LOVE LETTER TO THIS GAME!!!!
Aw, thank you!
I have no idea what this is about but this is amazing, the art and animation are gorgeous and I am so so so intrigued now
Thank you! This is a fan animation from a game called Alice Madness Returns. All the game's cutsceanes are made in this style (paper theater), and the story is a reimagination of Alice in Wonderland, but as a horror story. Usually we don't play horror games (we're cowards), but this game is as beautiful as it is terrifying, there is a lot of cool gameplays on youtube about it if you want to check it out. If i rebemember correctly is 29R$ on STEAM, but i don't know how much it is in dollars.
Nicely done.🙂👍
That's a real masterpiece.
Thank you a lot!!! This project took waay longer to finish >.< But i think it was worth it :)
Incredible and truly spetacular much like the cutcenes of the game.
Thank you! I've already made stopmotion with the paper aesthetics, and when i saw Alice's cutscenes i get curious to see if i could match the aesthetics, but making the animation in digital form. Years later i tested it and this is the result
Music from the cartoon Anastasia
this... this is art
Thank you so much!!! >u
This is beautiful, so very well done
Not sure why there was a warning for blood and violence but i still enjoyed it a lot
Well, when we made the warning cards the animation was going through the editing phase, and in the end the scene with blood was "kinda" removed (when the giant vorpal blade falls. The white splatters on the screen were crimson red, but in the final shot they become too much information and kinda stoled the spotlight from the animation of Alice changing her dress, so we changed to white). And the violence... Well, I think the train is pretty self explanatory. Yeah, there's not much violence, but when producing this animation TH-cam got on a phase were they were putting almost ALL animation in the "kids content" umbrella, and Alice IT IS NOT kids content. The warnings were a way that we thought to circumvent the possibilities of being mislabeled :)
@@meogatopreto ok that’s interesting and it makes plenty of sense
Really amazing!
Thank you! ^^
Did you know there's a "Kingdom Hearts" fanfic focused on Roxas, in which one of the worlds he visits is this one ? It's called "The Twilight Will". But there's more nostalgic yet dark worlds to explore in it. Give it a try.
I was particularly proud of the Queen and the Cat in the fanfic.
This is too underrated why doesn’t this have more views this is amazing, well done keep making more stuff like this it’s beautiful ❤️
Thank you so much!!! If you think this is underrated please share and (if you like) subscribe >u< There were other people saying this is underrated but we are actually really surprised how many views we got until now, this is really nice! We have a loooot of another animated projects, but every one of them has their own aestethic (tho not gonna lie i'm kinda obsessed with paper so some projects will propably lean in that direction XD) -L
Ooh.
:)
this is sooooo well done. I really love your art style and the way that this is animated
Thank you! The animation style of the game's cutscenes were really close to our style, so that's why we decided to make this project in the first place XD
I love your work! the song adds more attention the animation :)
Thank you, i'm so glad you liked it! ^^ At first, i tought in using the song Kill the Lights by the band Birthday Massacre, because it played in the credits of the fist game and is a nice melody, but it didn't fit at all. So i was ramdonly switching my songs playlist until i find the right one! I ALWAYS wanted to make an animation with Once Upon a December, and it fit like a glove to the character and the mood i wanted. So i just added some edits in the song for extra impact and started the script and storyboard.
@@meogatopreto you are most welcome!
Poor Lizzie 😔
!!!
I played the game. And this is perfect in every way possible. It's beautiful yet horrifying and confusing. Like the game itself.
Thank you! We really love that game! Usually we stay away from horror games (we're cowards), but Alice Madness Returns is so beautiful and misterious and charming and the horror is there, but Alice is so confident, so brave and walk around wonderland like she is admirng the sceneary and you dont feel so afraid (or vulnerable, or powerless) when confronted with the monsters. This mix of beauty and horror is something that we really enjoy in the game, so we made an efford to highlight it.
Beautiful song! Great work 😊
Thank you!!!
yk what- this lowkey traumitised me- not bcz your animation is bad just-
Good :)
Damn, that was GOOD
Thank you!!! -L
Beautiful!!
Thank you!!! ^^
Good
:3
This is criminally underrated, well done!!
Thank you! But we're now over 20k views, so i think that we're getting better :)
saw you in the comment section on lavendertowne's video and i clicked this, dont regret it
Thank you! I was a little shy about putting the link on the comment, but i though that the people that were liking and responding to the commentary would like to watch and animation like that.
Just awesome! Great work!
We're glad you enjoyed it :)
OMG, it's so fucking good
thank you!
My twisted heart is so happy
Beautiful
Thank you!
Fantastic job
Thank you!
Amazing
Thank you! ^^
I LOVE it!! XD
Thanks!
Как делать такие анимации?
It's a technique called 'puppet animation', but we made it in a awesome open source animation software called Synfig.
I LOVE THIS :0 GREAT WORK, THIS IS AMAZING 💕💕💕
Thank you!
CAN'T STOP WATCHING! I'm ungodly obsessed with this game. SO EXCITED for the third game to come out!!!!
I wonder if you'll do more Alice related stuff :O You're painfully talented omgg
THANK YOU SO MUCH TOT I'm excited for Alice Asylum too! if you notice, the yellow dress that I put on little Alice on this animation was based on one of the designs released for the third game :D We were considering doing something after Asylum got released, but this short here consumed almost nine months of work and we want to focus more on original projects for now, so I can't say for sure, sorry =\
@@meogatopreto You're very welcome! I totally understand, stuff like this takes alot of time. Hopefully you do make more after Asylum! And no, I didn't notice--but now it makes sense lol. I haven't seen the Asylum dresses very often so I couldn't tell, now I can!
Y'all are amazing, keep up the amazing work.
What audio is the humming noises from?
During the remixing i thought that it was not creepy enought, so i recorded myself humming the melody :) -L
@@meogatopreto oh, nice 👍
Absolutely gorgeous you deserve way more views.
I'm really glad that you liked! If you can share the video with others that would really help us :)
@@meogatopreto I'll definitely share it around as much as I can!
@@questionablemotivegirl6054 thank you a lot!!! ^^
Wirklich gut gemacht, wow!
Thank you! :)
Dam this shit is good! Well done, huge props to you. Good visuals, fitting animations, not many cut corners and tho I was skeptical at first but Anastasia “once upon a December” really fits. The only improvements I can recommend is during the 1:03 wonderland sequence having smoother transitions, maybe a curved zooming between the set pieces to creat a more 3 dimensional wacky wonderland feeling of the montage. And that when young Alice first see him leaving the sisters room she sees a centaur until the last where she recognized him, as she had memories of seeing the mythical beast that night, was probably actually the intercourse position, as there’s no centaurs in Oxford
Thanks for the tips! :D
About the centaur part: Alice says that she saw a centaur, but we didn't see any cutscenes in the game whith the centaur, so we didn't know exactly where she saw it. That, and the fact that in the end of the game we get a cutscene where she remembers that it was actually Bumby, so we decided to just put him in there. (Also, it was one puppet less, or else we needed to make a centaur one)
@@meogatopreto people in the fandom has theorized that what she saw as a centaur was the position of “doggy style” as the silhouette can reassemble the horse people. But I understand not wanting to do so much work for such a small detail, still good work tho
@@meogatopretothere’s actually a centaur cutscene in the very beginning where it pushes a wheelchair with a doll inside which sets on fire.
I love it
Bravi, bravi, bravissimo!
This is gorgeous! Well done ❤️🦋
Thank you!
holy .... this is the best thing i've ever seen amazing job
Thank you! If you'd like to see our other animations... 👀
Wow this is incredible!!!
Awesome stuff!
The part where Alice fall into Wonderlands is so good
This scene was a absolute NIGHTMARE to render (also was probably the most complex shot), i needed to render Alice and the background separate from each other and then mash them together on the final editing. I'm really happy that you liked!!! -L
two things from my childhood combined, alice in wonderland, and anastasia, i love!!
Thank you!!! I really wanted to make an animation with this song and another of Alice Madness, but i always thought that it would be different projects. When i realised both fitted very well together i was stoked! -L
This is magnific! And could be a special extra unlocked in the game! So well done, I can see the care and attention you put there! This game deserves such level of tribute!
Thank you!!! One of the reasons we made this animation was because the aesthetic from Alice's cutscenes were very close to the animation aesthetic we were doing. But yeah, the game is amazing and deserve love, and we can't wait to Alice Asylum!!! (The yellow dress in child Alice on the animation was made to match the Denial dress from Asylum because the design is gorgeous)
i love it! Just a perfect work for one of the greatest games ever
Thank you!!! We love this game too >u< The original song already fitted like a glove, but i am pretty proud of the remixing i did for this project! -L
This is amazing and horrifying all at once.
Love it.
Well, the game it's just like that, so thank you XD -L
I LOVE THIS, How are you so underratedddd
thank you a lot! XD but over 20k views is not that underrated i think..... I'm shocked we've got so many
This captures the aesthetic very well! I love this work!
Thank you!!! I wanted to make an Alice Madness Returns animation for some time because the aesthetic looked a lot like my own animations (all them at the moment were paper stopmotion or paper textured cutout animation, but way shorter and simpler) -L
Can you make a part 2 please I LOVE IT
Maybe when Alice Asylum get released we can think about a part 2 :)
This is fucking godly!
hahahaha thank you!
This is beautiful! The animation and expressions are amazing fantastic work!
Thank you! The art was all made by hand and all expressions had a different head (we used the puppet tecnique). Just Alice's character had 27 heads, if i remembered correctly.
@@meogatopreto That's so cool! I love hearing about animation techniques. I never knew that's how the puppet technique worked.
@@RikuSayPoof that's really nice! the level of complexity of the puppets can differ a lot. Studios with more technologies using the puppet technique can have only one head, but with several different eyes and mouth sprites to swap and distort to make the expressions.
So dark and so wonderful 🖤 Great job!
Thank you! This is awesome to hear, the two things i foccused while doing the art was to keep pretty and creepy. Preepy? -L