Andrew has never been to any animation class but he has accomplished what few in the creative industry can only dream of.
The last born in a family of five, which has a radio personality and rapper, is a self-taught 3D animator, filmmaker and game developer whose works in the animation and game development fields have won him global accolade.
What started as the love for watching cartoons and drawing, Andrew has managed to carve a niche with his profile rising in the animation industry to the level of being tapped to headline different projects in the creative space.
Describing himself as a creative with a global mindset, the 33-year-old was part of the popular satire TV show “the XYZ show” as part of the visual effects team at the age of 21.
"“Initially, I wanted to be an engineer as I loved sciences but then I would watch cartoons not knowing it is called animation"
He would then go a step further in 2011 by producing Wageuzi: Battle 2012 – a 3D animation pitting 2012 presidential aspirants against each other in the form of “transformers.”
The video quickly gained international attention, getting featured by global outlets such as CNN and Al Jazeera, among others. This culminated in him receiving best animation award at the 2012 Kalasha Film and Television awards.
However, things would not have turned this way for Andrew had he decided to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.
At that time, no institutions were dealing with animation but his burning desire to pursue his passion led him to defer his undergraduate studies to focus on teaching himself animation and perfecting his craft in digital animation.
“Initially, I wanted to be an engineer as I loved sciences but then I would watch cartoons not knowing it is called animation. But with time, I slowly started putting the pieces together learning the ropes from the age of 13,” he says.
In 2014, as part of a company by the name “Black Division Games”, Andrew and his team developed the popular videogame “Nairobi X.”
The videogame was based on alien invasion in Nairobi. It became an instant hit getting featured in several gaming events around the world. Nonetheless, it has to be the founding of Afrikana Digital, an animation studio that produces content for diverse clients, in 2015 that marked a major turning milestone in his animation life.
This would lead to the launching of a YouTube channel Heroes Smashers in 2016, which deals with animation with different characters.
The channel has gone viral managing to rack up over 400 million views and almost one million subscribers with a subscriber base growing at almost 1,000 new subscribers daily.
-Collins Omulo
