Creating Stop-Motion Animation for American McGee's Plushie Dreadfuls
See how Stunt Puppet Pictures created stop-motion animation for American McGee's Plushie Dreadfuls, using lots of hot glue and sticky wax, and learn what McGee has in mind for Dreadfuland, how (and if) his Alice's story will continue in the new project, and what he wants to keep from older games.
American McGee is a legendary game developer who has worked on Doom and Quake at id Software and then on his own dark fantasy games inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Now, he has a toy line called Plushie Dreadfuls, delivering creatures representing mental health conditions, disabilities, and other experiences. The plushies have recently received their first stop-motion short, directed by Stunt Puppet Pictures' co-creator Justin Rasch, and we were eager to learn how the animation was set up and what McGee's plans for the Alice universe are.
Introduction
American McGee: My name is American McGee, and I am a creator living in Shanghai, China, with my wife, two kids, a dog, and a collection of fish, lizards, and sometimes turtles. Our last set of turtles grew too big, and so we donated them to the pond at the local temple.
Plushie Dreadfuls came into being as an extension of the Patreon effort to create a third in the series of "Alice" games. We offered a variety of physical rewards to our Patrons over the years until we hit on the idea of a plushie inspired by the distressed white rabbit Alice is seen clutching at the start of the first game. That rabbit was wildly popular and led us down the rabbit hole of plush production.
The name "Plushie Dreadfuls" is a play on the Victorian-era "Penny Dreadfuls" and is meant to acknowledge the soothing power that comes from embracing the macabre and celebrating our scars. The idea is that this acceptance – and cuddling our Dreadful friends – shows that we've healed.
Let’s talk about the stop-motion animations you’re doing with Stunt Puppet Pictures. Why did you choose this studio? What made its style fit the plushies’ dark world? Why did you choose stop-motion for the first animation?
A: Stunt Puppet Pictures were in our orbit through mutual connections for some years. One of the more subtle connections is through my son – who loved and watched on repeat the Bruder stop-motion videos done by Justin. He would laugh his head off at those cute videos, making him a fan since the age of two!
Stop motion in general just makes a lot of sense for soft toys. It maintains the texture and feel of the plushies while bringing them to life in a way that clearly communicates a human touch. At a time when people feel overwhelmed by computer-generated animations and AI content, clearly handmade content feels refreshing and special.
What software did you use to create the animation and why? Did you have any custom tools you made for the project? Did you use the toys from the series, or did you create ones specifically for production? How did you set up the scenes to make the plushies’ personalities shine?
Justin Rasch: We shoot with a program called DRAGONFRAME. It allows us to live-view our current frames and playback any we have shot as we animate. It is the perfect stop-motion animation software. We also use Adobe After Effects for compositing and Photoshop for painting.
We have custom garage tools we use in every short, but very often we make it up as we go. Simple solutions could be shoving my wallet under a character to move them higher in frame or as complicated as a custom-geared winder to help create controllable rising and falling of a character moving through space.
We used lots of hot glue and sticky wax to get the job done. My favorite part of stop motion is that there are 100 solutions to every problem, and all of them can work. We use the actual plushies for the shorts. Shel (my wife and studio partner) cuts them open and puts in a wire skeleton for us to animate and pose the figures.
We write the shorts in basic pitch form and then develop the ones that are chosen by American. The characters and personalities are very strong, and ideas come through for interactions and the story very easily.
My daughter Aedon Rasch storyboards the chosen short, which we then shoot a rough animatic of and send to American for approval and notes. After it's accepted, we start to build sets and lighting, then moving into animation.
How long does it take to make, let’s say, 10 seconds of the final footage? Does animating characters tied to mental health conditions change how you deal with rigging or other parts of the process?
J: I can usually animate about 3 seconds in an 8-hour day (at 24 FPS) if all goes well. This can change when you have multiple characters or difficult actions. After shooting the animation, you usually have a post-process where you have to paint out support wires in Photoshop as well.
The mental health aspect of working with the characters changes storytelling more than the physical process. You have a different kind of care in what you animate because you know so many people deal with these issues and are deeply comforted by some of these characters. My partner, Shel, is a trauma therapist and has worked in this field for 20 years. She is very in tune and able to help guide our process with a lot of care.
What challenges did you face during the project? What did you learn?
J: Everything in stop motion is a challenge. All of the puppets have to be wired and sewn back up so we can pose them and have them hold as we animate. Every time we touch them, since they are filled with cotton and covered in fur… There is some sculpting involved to keep them shaped properly and to keep the fur from looking too messy.
If they interact with an object, it must be wired to the hands and supported. Any time they are balancing on one leg or jumping, they have to be supported by wires or winders to keep them airborne for the 24 photos required in a second of animation.
Will the future animations be in the same style?
J: There right now seems to be tons of fun variety in the spots we are creating for these awesome plushies. Such a great group of characters to play with for us as a studio.
Will this project promote the plushies only, or will it be part of Dreadfuland, your narrative project?
A: The idea is that we experiment with a series of animations that are focused purely on the Plushie Dreadful products (plushies). And in that experimentation, we figure out how we might tackle a larger production aimed at promoting Dreadfuland.
Speaking of it, Dreadfuland is American’s mysterious world that could take any form. Could you tell us more about it? What are your plans for it at the moment?
A: Dreadfuland is the underworld Robert [the protagonist] falls into after his adoptive mother, Mrs. Ashcroft, burns his plush rabbit and subjects him to an experimental treatment meant to strip him of emotions. It's built entirely out of his own psychology. Real places from his childhood get warped into something surreal: the train station where he lost his mother becomes Anxiety Station, his father's hat shop becomes the Hatter's Reverie, the hospital where both his parents ended up becomes the Labyrinth Ward. Every location in Dreadfuland is a memory wearing a costume.
At the center of it all is the Triarchy, three plush rulers who convince Robert that his own emotions are the enemy and that "refining" them away is healing. It's not. It's the same suppression his caretakers taught him, just dressed up as kindness. His real journey is learning to reject that lie and integrate what he's been taught to bury.
As for plans, we're building this to work across formats. Right now, the focus is on a two-minute animated teaser to bring the world to life visually before we go further. Long-term, this has legs as a game and as a book.
Did you feel you needed closure for Alice, or will it be a new beginning?
A: Do I need closure for Alice? Not exactly. This isn't Alice's story, and I'm not trying to finish something that was already finished. But there's no pretending the DNA isn't there. Robert's journey mirrors Alice's in the way that matters most: healing doesn't come from escaping your trauma; it comes from descending into it and understanding it. Alice Bun, his plush companion, even gives us a direct thread back to that world without stepping on anything EA owns. This is a new beginning that happens to be walking the same road.
You are creating a game project now, which will be your return to gamedev. Is it challenging to go back after the break? How is the industry different now? What principles do you want to keep from your previous games and what do you wish to change?
A: Going back isn't really challenging because this stuff – writing, designing, working with other creatives – just feels very natural and easy for me. The industry has changed in a lot of ways: funding, tools, audience expectations, AI, etc. A lot of the changes are quite tumultuous, and that probably means they were very needed. Shake-ups are good.
What I want to keep from the old games is the commitment to genuinely dark, psychologically honest storytelling, not shock for its own sake, but real emotional truth underneath the horror. What I want to do differently is mostly related to how we structure our team (mostly virtual at this point) and how we interface with the development (likely licensing out to a larger dev team once we've built enough of the vision on our own). We're building in Godot at the moment (a smaller game called "Spare Hearts"). Once we fire up an engine for Dreadfuland... I imagine that'll be Unreal Engine.
Plushie Dreadfuls carries forward the same core belief that ran through Alice: that healing isn't about erasing pain, it's about facing it. That's not a trend I'm chasing, it's the same conviction I've had the whole time.
Could you tell us about the plot and mechanics? What makes it unique?
A: The plot follows Robert, a boy renamed James by the Ashcrofts, who fell into Dreadfuland after being subjected to an experiment designed to erase his emotions. He's told the "wild" plushies he meets there are dangerous and corrupted, and he's sent on labors to capture and "refine" them, really a polite word for erasing who they are. Each one he defeats isn't a monster, they're a piece of grief, rage, anxiety, or fear that he's being taught to destroy in himself. His real quest, buried under the Triarchy's lie, is finding Alice Bun, his plush companion, who holds the pieces of his stolen identity and his real name.
What makes it unique is that this isn't a game about winning by destroying your enemies. It's built around restoration instead. The core resource isn't health, it's stuffing, literally the soul and identity of every plush. You can beat an enemy down and leave them empty, which is a kind of narrative and emotional dead end, or you can re-stuff and stitch them back together and turn them into allies. The tools mirror this: a needle and thread that can stab or mend, scissors that cut open or cut free, a seam ripper that tears or unbinds. Every weapon in the game has a healing use built into it, and the game rewards you for choosing that use.
The unique hook is that the villains aren't monsters to be slain, they're wounded children, exactly like Robert. When you finally face the Triarchy at the end, you don't destroy them. You hold them. That's the whole thesis of the project in one mechanic: you don't heal by cutting parts of yourself away, you heal by picking them back up.
Are there any other projects you’re working on? What can we expect from American McGee in the future?
A: The main work focus these days is on Plushie Dreadfuls. All my free time goes to family (we have two wonderful kids who are 4 and 6), which is ultimately the most important project of all!
