Tinkle star Shambu in new cartoons by Animagic!!

 The series of 10 Micro Shorts (>1 min) featuring Shikari Shambu (who was once a shikari-hunter- but is now a wildlife photographer!!) is a project really dear to me. I have always wanted all these popular characters who are now part of our collective memory to have their own cartoons which stay true to their personality and DNA ie. not make them into something they are not in the process of 'updating' them. So this was our honest sincere take on this beloved star of TINKLE comics.

Being a series of shorts, one could explore him as a real person in that even tho we have the great comic strips, how does he move how fast? how slow? what does he sound like? It was a great challenge!

And with the script ideas from Kuriakose Vasian and team to leap off, we were given tremendous freedom to imagine, design and execute our vision! Their excitement and glee at every stage kept our fires fueled!!

I have to thanks profusely the team at ACK/Tinkle esp Saju (the above mentioned Kuriakose Vasian), Tinkle editor Rajani Thindiath, Shambu's current caretaker Savio Mascarenhas and CEO Preeti Vyas for this gift.

On the art and production front, Gayatri and Prajakta weathered the storms alongside.. All the four legged inspirations - Shambho, Dumroo, Teddy, Jugni, Nanha, Bilwa and Omie - have to be particularly mentioned becoz you will see their attitudes modelled into Lions, Tigers, Tortoises and even monkeys! This was a sorta dream thing to do.. heck! I even got to play Shambu!! ;)))

The Music was very special to me as we really wanted a certain vibe that is still missing in Indian cartoons to a large degree. This was made possible by composer Chirag Panchal who has the spirit of the old masters in him for sure. The ever reliable Jyotika was at hand to oversee the music process and lend her sweet voice to the Title track!

All the design, storyboard, animatic, backgrounds and compositing and post was done inhouse @ Animagic!! ... but it was a challenge to find a production studio that could attempt the sort of animation we were looking for. This finally came in the form of Regh Animation studio who worked on the animation of most of the episodes. Thanks to Sangram Borse and his team which also included a few past animagicians!

While this has the seeds of a great opportunity, it really needs all your support to take it to its logical conclusion!! Please do share with all your friends and show that a market exists for this and many other childhood favorites to made into cartoons of the best quality possible.. This is only the tip of the iceberg!!

Do tune into the Suppandi and friends YOUTUBE channel for the 5 remaining cartoons premiering today from 7pm to 8pm every 15 mins!