Bringing a six year old’s imaginary story to life for the Sky Kids TV special
We proudly took charge of the 2D art and animation for the Sky Kids TV Special, Ama’s Story.
Ama’s story is a children’s TV animated special, about a black British family from Nigerian and Ghanaian heritage. Their youngest daughter, Ama, was unable to find a book that represented her for her school’s book day, and consequently started creating one from her own imagination.


We embraced the childlike style in terms of design since the story is told from a six year old perspective. It was also fun to reference the actual cast when designing the characters.


As Ama imagined her characters with superpowers, we had fun playing around and experimenting with 2D effects.


We tested different colouring techniques and decided to go for a solid bright colour scheme to have clarity over the live action footage.
We lip synced some of the dialogues of the story when needed, We also tried to emote the characters with the poses while designing initially.

As some of the shots were handheld, it was time to put on our technical hats, making sure the animation was properly tracked in the backdrop.

Credits
Client: Sky Kids
Created by: Cynthia Deluola
Direction: Makalla McPherson
2D Design & Animation: Hend Esmat & Lamiaa Diab
Production: Wildseed Studios
Full credit list here