Kitten knight × dragon on the beat: Blender blockout → Seedance 2.5 → 4K

A 35 cm kitten knight and a 40 m dragon, cut to a 9.6 s track: own refs, a clay blockout in Blender, one Seedance 2.5 draft → 1080p, graded in 4K in AE.

mira_mybots · 2026-10-03

Made with: seedance-2-5, gpt-image-2.5-sunburst, Mira for Blender, Mira MCP, Blender, Mira for Adobe, After Effects, Claude

A tiny kitten knight stands in a foggy meadow with her sword up. On the drop, a colossal black dragon slams down behind her, sniffs the little knight and they fly off together. Claude built the whole scene in Blender through the Mira MCP, Seedance 2.5 drew the world, After Effects did the 4K finish.

1. Cut the track first

The track is 9.6 s: a quiet intro up to 3.30 s, then a drum hit every ~0.85 s (3.30 / 4.15 / 5.05 / 5.90 / 6.75 / 7.62 / 8.50 / 9.35). Every camera cut in the blockout sits on one of those hits, and the dragon lands on the first one. 24 fps, 240 frames, 10 shots.

2. Make your own references

Two studio refs carry the look: the kitten in the exact pose you want (sword vertical in front of the chest, both paws on the grip) and a dragon design with the kitten next to its claw for scale. gpt-image-2.5-sunburst, 8 credits each.

3. Block it out in Blender

1. Stand-ins, real sizes

   Kitten = a 0.36 m stand-in, dragon = a hand-built wyvern (wings are its front limbs), the meadow = one terrain mass with a few big hills. Clay only: no grass, no props, no colour.

2. Flex the creature

   Key the dragon's path, then flex_creature bends the spine along it. Wings are separate objects with flap keys, marked as creature parts.

3. 10 cameras on the beat

   Each camera is bound to a timeline marker on a drum hit: close-up on the kitten, the dragon diving out of the fog, the slam, the head lowering to the kitten, take-off, chase, the rider, top-down, a dive past a low camera, the fire.

4. Playblast 16:9

   blender_playblast through the camera → a clean 1280×720 clay clip that goes to Seedance as @Video1.

4. The prompt

Structure: the refs and the clip bound first (@Image1, @Image2, @Video1 = clay blockout, figures are stand-ins), a one-line summary, the look of the kitten, the dragon and the meadow, then one line per shot with the timecodes of the cuts. Only the first two shots copy the reference pose; after that every pose is natural, with weight and balance.

@Image1 is the kitten knight's appearance and pose reference, a studio photo: keep this exact kitten - fluffy cream-and-ginger fur, big dark round eyes, small pink bow, steel plate armour with brass trim, brown leather belts, chainmail skirt, white cloak - its sword grip in Image 1 is the opening pose only (shots 1 and 2); its grey studio backdrop is not part of the scene. @Image2 is the dragon's design reference: keep this exact dragon - its head, horn crown, ember eyes, teeth, charcoal-black armour plates with bronze edges, mud and ash, red throat glow, torn wings and bladed tail; the small kitten beside its claw in Image 2 only shows the scale. @Video1 is a clay 3D blockout: follow its camera path, its wide 16:9 framing and its 9 hard cuts exactly; its grey figures are stand-ins only - the kitten and the dragon do not repeat their poses, they look and move as written here.

Photoreal wildlife-documentary realism in a foggy highland: a tiny kitten knight stands alone in a misty meadow holding its sword straight up, then a huge black dragon slams down right behind it, lowers its head to sniff the fearless little knight, and they fly off together; hard cuts on every beat of the music.

THE SWORD AND THE POSES: in shots 1 and 2 the kitten holds the sword exactly as in Image 1 - vertical in front of its chest, both paws on the grip, point straight up. After that every pose is natural, with real weight and balance and never frozen: the kitten flinches from the blast, plants its feet, shifts its grip, lets the sword rest on its shoulder or points it, holds on to the dragon with one paw while riding; the dragon moves like a living animal, breathing, turning its head, settling its weight. The kitten from Image 1 stands about 35 cm tall on its hind legs, fur parting and lifting in the wind, dew on the whiskers, scuffed steel plates and a damp white cloak heavy at the hem, snapping in the wind. The dragon from Image 2 is colossal, about 40 metres long, so large that the kitten is smaller than one of its claws; menacing and feral, its wings are its front limbs, it moves heavily, every step shaking the ground, smoke leaking from its nostrils. Location: a wide wet highland meadow of long uneven grass with yellowed tufts and darker trampled patches, beaded with dew, under dense rolling fog; soft green hills and pine ridges fading into haze, cold silver overcast light with soft shadows.

Shot 1 (0s-1.75s): tight close-up at the kitten's eye level, slightly three-quarter, nearly static handheld; the kitten fills the frame, the vertical blade crossing right in front of its face, the brass crossguard under its chin, the white cloak whipping sideways in a strong gust, fog and wet grass behind.
Shot 2 (1.75s-3.3s): wider shot at the kitten's eye level, the kitten in the centre with its sword up; behind it on the left the black dragon comes down out of the fog with one heavy wingbeat, growing huge, its shadow sweeping across the grass.
Shot 3 (3.3s-4.1s): hard cut on the beat drop; low front wide from the kitten's height; the dragon slams down onto the meadow just behind and to the left of the kitten, a blast of grass, dew and mud bursting outward; the tiny kitten on the right of the frame flinches, ears flattening and cloak whipping in the downdraft, then plants its feet and turns its head to look up.
Shot 4 (4.1s-5s): the camera pulls back wider; the dragon folds its wings and lowers its huge head down beside the kitten, sniffing it with a hot breath of smoke that ruffles the kitten's fur, a red glow in its throat; the kitten looks up at it, shifts its weight and rests the sword on its shoulder, unafraid.
Shot 5 (5s-5.9s): low side ground shot; the kitten now sits on the base of the dragon's neck, one paw gripping a spine and the sword in the other; the dragon rears, roars and launches with a huge downstroke, the kitten leaning forward into it, grass and water spray blasting off the meadow.
Shot 6 (5.9s-6.75s): chase camera behind and above; the dragon powers up over green hills with heavy wingbeats, the tiny rider holding on to its neck, cloak snapping.
Shot 7 (6.75s-7.6s): close shot on the kitten riding the neck, one paw holding a spine, the other raising the sword, swaying with each wingbeat, fur and cloak streaming back, dark scales flexing under it.
Shot 8 (7.6s-8.5s): straight top-down shot from high above; the dragon's black silhouette with wings spread crosses over misty valleys and green fields.
Shot 9 (8.5s-9.3s): low camera on a hillside; the dragon dives toward the lens with wings swept back and roars past overhead with a blast of wind.
Shot 10 (9.3s-10s): low front shot circling below the dragon; it hangs in the air with huge wingbeats and bellows a torrent of orange fire into the sky, the fog lit gold; on its neck the kitten thrusts the sword high overhead with one paw, holding on with the other.

Closing notes: cold misty overcast light throughout, fog in every wide shot, real-time speed for the animals, natural depth of field, slight handheld feel on the ground and a smooth airborne camera in the sky. Sound: wind, wingbeats like sails cracking, the ground shaking on the landing, a deep rasping roar on the drop, a low growl and hissing smoke, the roar of fire. No BGM; generate only environmental sounds and action sounds. No subtitles.

5. Draft at 480p → the same take in 1080p

generate_video with draft=true (seedance-2-5, 16:9, 10 s) costs 36 credits. When the take is right, finalize_draft re-renders the same seed, prompt and refs in 1080p for 200: same shots, same cuts, sharper detail.

6. 4K finish in After Effects

1. Upscale

   Detail-preserving Upscale 200 % (detail 55) + Unsharp Mask → pre-render a 3840×2160 ProRes plate.

2. Grade

   Lumetri: cooler, more contrast, lifted fade, lower saturation; teal shadows, warm highlights — the fire and the red throat stay warm.

3. Optics

   A touch of barrel distortion, red-channel fringing toward the edges, orange halation and a soft bloom on the highlights, vignette, film grain.

4. Render in chunks

   aerender in two pieces (the disk cache fills up on 4K), concat, then H.264 4K and 1080p with the track.

Recipe

1. Mark the beat grid of your track and put every cut on a hit.

2. Make studio refs of your hero (in the pose you need) and your creature.

3. Block out in clay in Blender: stand-ins, real sizes, one camera per shot on a marker.

4. Prompt: bind @Image/@Video, one line per shot with timecodes, natural poses after the opening.

5. Draft at 480p (36), finalize the good take in 1080p (200).

6. Upscale, grade and add optics in After Effects.