First Look: Original Force Unveils ‘Warrior Cats’ Character Designs

The Chinese studio, lead producer with Tencent Video and Coolabi Group, revealed the first materials, including early storyboards and near-final visuals, from the cat-clan adaptation; directed by Rodrigo Blaas and showrun by A.C. Bradley, the series debuts in 2028 in China ahead of international distribution on Disney+ and Disney Channel.

Original Force has unveiled the first character designs, storyboards, and other preview material from Warrior Cats, its CG animated series adaptation of the bestselling book franchise, at a special event hosted by Tencent Video Animation, where the studio’s creative team took the stage alongside series director Rodrigo Blaas. The work-in-progress materials provided the first public look at how the world of the wild cat clans are being adapted from page to screen.

The series, based on “Warrior Cats: The Prophecies Begin,” is set to debut in 2028 on Tencent Video across China and Southeast Asia, followed by international distribution through Disney+ and Disney Channel. Original Force is the lead production studio, in partnership with Tencent Video and Coolabi Group, the franchise’s owner; the series entered production in July with Emmy-winning showrunner A.C. Bradley (Ms. Marvel, What If…?) and Blaas (Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, Star Wars: Visions) leading the creative team.

The studio notes that as the first official animated adaptation of Warrior Cats, the series must balance authentic feline anatomy and behavior with the emotional expressiveness the storytelling demands. Blaas and the international creative team have led work on character silhouettes, fur, skeletal structure and movement, as well as camera language, environmental scale and visual clarity during fast-paced action. The materials shown ran from early storyboards and animation studies to near-final visuals.

Creative and production talent from China, the United States and Europe work on the show, with Original Force coordinating writers, directors, visual development artists, storyboard teams, animators and technical R&D specialists around a shared pipeline. The studio says it is taking a more active creative role on the series than in its traditional CG service work, leading visual development, managing the cross-border collaboration and overseeing quality across the pipeline. The team is currently refining the series’ visual style, character treatments, animation, environments and preview film.

“Warrior Cats represents Original Force’s next step: leading global creative collaboration, building an international production framework, and ensuring consistent quality across a multi-year project involving hundreds of creators worldwide,” said Adam Zhang, executive producer of Warrior Cats and Original Force project lead. It marks a shift for Chinese animation, Zhang said, from “Made in China” to “Created with China.”

Created by Working Partners, a Coolabi Group company, the “Warrior Cats” books have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide, been translated into 38 languages and spent 20 consecutive years on the New York Times bestseller list. Original Force, with more than 2,700 professionals across studios in Nanjing, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Bangkok, has participated in more than 800 animation projects through its long-standing collaboration with DreamWorks Animation.

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

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