10th U6+ Consortium of African Universities International Conference

African animation continues to evolve as an emerging creative industry; however, limited research has examined how culturally authentic African narratives can be systematically translated into animated productions through practice-based creative methodologies. While African stories increasingly appear across comics, film, and digital media, there remains little documented knowledge on production approaches that integrate African philosophy, mythology, languages, visual aesthetics, and narrative traditions into contemporary animation. This study addresses this gap by investigating how an original African comic can be transformed into animation while preserving its cultural identity through an iterative creative process. The research presents a practice-based exploration centred on Majesty, an original African comic book developed by the researcher and adapted into an animated production. Rather than treating the animation solely as a creative output, the project positions the creative process itself as a site of knowledge production. Through successive stages of story development, scriptwriting, character and environment design, comic adaptation, animation production, and critical reflection, the study examines how creative decisions contribute to the construction of an African-centred visual storytelling methodology. Employing a practice-based research methodology, knowledge is generated through creative production supported by reflective journals, sketchbooks, design iterations, process documentation, and peer critique. These materials provide evidence of the evolving design process and inform the development of a transferable production framework.
The study contributes a practice-based model for adapting African narratives from comics into animation and demonstrates how creative practice can generate new knowledge for African visual storytelling. By documenting the processes through which cultural knowledge is interpreted and transformed into animated media, the research offers a methodological contribution to animation studies and creative practice while supporting the continued development of culturally grounded African animation.