The future of storytelling is coming soon.

Storyboarder is a tool and platform that enables anyone to create, buy, and sell webcomics. Over 650,000 users have used Storyboarder to make movies like Black Panther, Cruella, I Tonya, and Modern Family — and now we're expanding to webcomics.

Launch YC: Storyboarder - Create, share and sell webcomics

Storyboarder makes it possible for anyone to tell visual stories by creating 3D scenes. We’re developing this tool to handle the heavy lifting of shot composition, background design, character creation, and speech balloon placement, so users can focus on writing their stories. These stories can be shared as episodes in ongoing series to millions of viewers. When readers get hooked on a series, they pay a small amount to read the next episode.

Features

Easy To Use For Anyone

Designed from the ground up to get you from idea to story as quickly as possible.

Accessible

It’s a web-based online tool. No downloads. Access from anywhere. Works on mobile devices and tablets!

Real Time Multiplayer

Collaborate on your story with others!

Character Creator

Create any character you need for your story just by describing them. You can edit all of their features.

Pose characters easily

Fully-rigged and poseable characters augmented by an extensive library of preset poses

Facial Expressions

Easily assign emotion to your characters with facial presets or manually create your own expressions.

Asset Library

We have an extensive library of prebuilt and parametric assets for scenes, objects, clothing, etc.

Ask Storyboarder!

You’ll be able to talk to Storyboarder and ask it to do things like, “Have this character look at that character.” or “Sit in the chair.”

Ray traced renderer

Render beautifully lit scenes using a world class renderer with physically based materials.

Automatic shot composition

Storyboarder will frame shots automatically, taking character placement and artistic shot composition into account.

2D Drawing Engine

Completely rebuilt 2D drawing engine that allows you to draw in 3D space.

Script Editor

You can type a script like you are chatting in a messaging app. Storyboarder will automatically create shots as you type.

Export to Images, Video and PDF

Export to any format you need to show your work on other platforms.

Edit in VR

You can put on a VR headset and edit your scene in VR. This is the easiest way to manipulate scenes in 3D!

Always improving!

We are always adding new features, updates and fixes that make the experience using Storyboarder better!

Platform

Studio Organization

Keep your storyboarder files, story ideas, characters, scenes, and objects organized in your studio, synced in the cloud.

Asset Marketplace

Browse the asset marketplace and buy items you need to tell your stories. Put out a bounty for items that don't exist yet!

A social network for storytellers

Create relationships with your audience and other creators. Have in depth conversations about storytelling. Collaborate with each other.

Daily Challenges

We give you a prompt and you can see everyone else's work as they are participating in the challenges.

Stickers

Collect stickers by doing things throughout the site. Use the stickers to stick on people's episodes and comments. You can also use them to decorate your profile.

Why are we building Storyboarder?

Stories are important. Stories have the power to entertain, to make you feel, to make you think, and to inspire you. We want more stories connecting with people that love them. Everyone has stories to tell. We want everyone to be able to tell those stories.

Stories are visual. Visual stories are immediately approachable. When a reader sees a sequence of images, they immediately know what’s happening. Facial expressions show you how the characters are feeling. This is the power of movies, shows, and comics. Unfortunately, most storytellers don’t have the ability to synthesize visuals for their stories.

Today, we casually walk around with computers in our pockets that can easily render rich 3D scenes. The video game industry has developed intuitive interfaces for interacting with 3D spaces, scenes, and characters. We have smart systems we can plainly talk to, and get thoughtful, well reasoned results.

If I’m trying to tell a visual story, why can’t I plainly talk to a tool to explain my story and the tool automatically creates the visuals for the story? With Storyboarder, you can.

We're going to give storytellers visual capabilities they’ve never had before. This is why we are building a platform for them to post these stories so other people can enjoy them. We’re building a community around the stories so that storytellers can connect with their readers.

Stories are valuable. When viewers connect with stories, they are hooked. They want to know what happens in the next episode. That is worth something. We're building our platform from the ground up so viewers can pay small amounts to storytellers to read their episodes. At scale, this will be life-changing to creators on our platform.

In the future, all stories will be crafted in visual form. Bold claim? Hardly, we are almost already there.

Will you join us?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Storyboarder?

Storyboarder is a tool and a platform to create and sell webcomics.

Yeah, but like, what is it really?

A webcomic creation tool built around a powerful 3D editor, and a platform for posting stories created with the tool. We’re developing this tool so that it handles the heavy lifting of generating compelling visuals - shot composition, background design, character creation, and speech balloon placement - letting users focus on writing their stories. These stories can be shared and sold on the platform.

What are webcomics?

Webcomics are similar to conventional comics, but they're published digitally. The format we're focusing on was pioneered in Korea - vertical scrolling and only a single panel wide. This makes them extremely easy to read on mobile phones, where people consume most media. They are even more accessible than videos because they can be picked up and put down at any time, and don’t require audio to experience the story. Webcomics are released as episodes (50-100 panels) and take 5 to 10 minutes to experience.

What is the platform to share and sell webcomics?

In addition to being a place to buy, sell, and share digital comics, the Storyboarder platform will be a place for creators and readers to interact, fostering communities based around the stories they love. Readers become deeply engaged with compelling stories that they connect with on a personal level. They want to talk about their favorite characters with other fans, or speculate on what’s going to happen in the next chapter, and show their support for the author. We’re building discussion forums, fan participation features, and creator patronage as first class features of the platform.

How can I make money telling stories?

When you publish a new episode in your story, your audience will be waiting for it. Your story is incredibly valuable and viewers want to support the creation of your story. Viewers who first start reading your series can read the first few episodes for free. If they’ve read those episodes, they are likely hooked. When they want to read the next episode, they have to pay a small amount (roughly $0.20), or they can wait a day to read the next episode for free. This creates an immense amount of engagement, connection and value.

Are you going to charge people to use Storyboarder?

No! We want everyone telling stories! As a storyteller, you are incredibly valuable to us. We want our users creating, sharing, and buying each other’s stories. We make money by taking a cut of each transaction on our platform. So it’s our business to create the best storytelling tools and experiences as possible.

Won’t my stories look the same as other peoples’?

No! No one will tell a story exactly the same as you. Your entire value is your unique point of view and that will be reflected in the stories you make. The platform will include an asset library and marketplace, where storytellers can post requests for specific assets for other artists to fulfill. We're doing a ton of work to make sure creators can generate unique, compelling visuals using Storyboarder. We want to avoid the clashing mix of assets you see in other 3D comic creation software

People post their stories on Storyboarder. Do I HAVE to post my stories?

No, of course not! We want you to feel comfortable sharing your stories with a constructive and welcoming community, but you definitely don’t have to. If you are working on something top secret, feel secure that it will stay top secret!

Can you or anyone else see my stories?

No. Your stories are private unless you post them.

Do I own my stories I make with Storyboarder?

YES! When you make something you own it! It’s called implicit copyright. You’re free to do whatever you want with your stories. Want to make a movie out of your story? That’s awesome! Let us know because we want to watch it!

There was a previous version of Storyboarder - what's the deal with that?

The previous version of Storyboarder was a tool we built to help create storyboards. Storyboards are the most basic form of visual storytelling - a sequence of rough images used to tell a story. They're used in film, animation, and video games to previsualize sequences so that production goes as smoothly as possible. The old Storyboarder is great at what it does - it has over 700k users and was used in the production of billion-dollar movies.

Why change the focus to webcomics then?

Filmmaking isn’t easy - few scripts ever reach production, and the majority of them that do end up losing money. Our mission is to empower storytellers, and we feel digital comics are plot rich and visually compelling in a way no other medium can match for a given amount of creator effort. We feel that focusing our efforts on webcomic creation tools is the most effective way to accomplish our mission.

What’s the difference between this and the old downloadable Storyboarder? Why rebuild it?

The new Storyboarder will be a seamless, accessible evolution of the old Storyboarder. It’s a web-based app, so all you’ll need to start using it is a URL. It’s redesigned to focus on ease of use and visual fidelity, while including all of the capabilities of the old Storyboarder. See the ‘Features’ section for more details.

Can I use the new version of Storyboarder for things other than webcomics? Like, you know, storyboarding? 👀

Yup! Ultimately, Storyboarder will always be a tool for telling visual stories. The difference between a digital comic and film storyboards are largely matters of presentation and formatting. We’re focusing on digital comics because we think they’re right at the sweet spot of creator effort and storytelling potential, but you can use the output of Storyboarder to make memes, storyboards, TikToks, webcomics, etc.

Why episodic content?

Episodes are excellent for storytelling! First, they are accessible to the viewer. A viewer knows when they start reading an episode, it will only be 5 to 10 minutes of their time. If they want to read more, they can! Episodes allow storytellers to try out ideas and create worlds without figuring out the whole story. You can just create a single episode with a rough idea and see if viewers connect with it. Furthermore, you can get ideas and improve your story based on feedback from viewers as it progresses.

Okay, cool, but does my content have to be episodic?

No! An ‘episode’ can be as long or as short as you want it to be - so if you want to publish a single chapter on a monthly basis, that’s fine too.

What will happen to my old Storyboarder files?

You can still use the old Storyboarder just as you always have. We're looking to make an importer that allows you to import your files into the new Storyboarder. We are no longer developing the old Storyboarder. We're putting all our effort into the latest evolution.

Does Storyboarder use AI?

We'll use any technology that helps our users tell visual stories. We're really excited about the potential of generative ML models, and we're actively evaluating several models for use in our software. Since our tool is a 3D scene editor, we're going to be able to incorporate types of models that other creative tools aren't currently exploring