How Mike Muthiga Turned His Childhood Hobby into Millions
As technology takes off in Africa, the continent has also spawned a number of top-notch animation studios. While most of them are based in South Africa, East Africa has their fair share of animators – such as Fatboy Animations.
Holding a degree in Civil Engineering, Muthiga is the founder of the animation studio that created works such as Tinga Tinga Tales, and television commercials like ‘Faimba’ and ‘Mazgwembe’. Muthiga has ambitions to open an animation school in Kenya.
Mike Muthiga is CEO of Fatboy Animations and the man behind Faiba fame. Mike is one of the most sought-after men in animations.
Mike Muthiga’s career started when he was at Alliance High school, he chooses Art and Design as one of his subjects and with the encouragement of his subject teacher his passion for animation grew.
He got a chance to try his skills as a junior animator and later lead animator for one and a half year with the popular Tinga Tinga tale children series.
After Tinga Tinga tales wounded up, he worked with South African animator- Neil dealing mainly with post production. While working with Neil he created animated characters that he uploaded to social media networks. One of the characters ‘Huratete’ who was dancing to the song ‘Huratete’ became an instant hit.
A food company approached him for an animation work but they failed to agree to shs. 200000 fee.He visited a friend who worked at Jamii Telecom and the director offered him a chance to create an animation character for advertisement purposes and Faimba was born.
Ogilvy approached him on behalf of Orange for animation creations on a five-episode long contract worth Sh 3.5 million.
In about six months Fatboy animation had turned over the animation industry and was signing lucrative deals with leading brands.
After working with the BBC & Disney channels in the popular TingaTinga Tales animation production (Citizen TV), Mike, together with his friend Sen Kanyare, set up Fat Boy Animations, an animation company with an aim to provide content for the advertising and entertainment industry.
Forbes magazine has listed Mike twice as one of Africa’s Top 30 under 30 Entrepreneurs for 2016.
He has been the Executive Creative Director, fatboy animations since 2010, debriefing production team and approving briefs, working hand in hand with creative team to come up with scripts, detailing execution process and ensuring up to standard animation production and meeting deadlines.
