How Kamachi Studios Drew On Mandawa’s Frescos To Create A Vivid Frame-by-Frame Animation

Some places don’t just serve as backdrops — they demand to be part of the story. Rajasthan is one of those places. Even though I visited in April, under the crackling sun, the land has a unique way of speaking to you, urging you to go deeper and find the stories that led to such immense beauty.

Kamachi Studios’ animation based on Mandawa’s frescos came to them as a complete surprise, as Vinay Darekar explains: “We were actually in Mandawa for a completely different shoot when I ended up speaking to a local camel-safari guide. It was an unplanned moment. I just pulled out my phone and started asking him questions. His story came out in small, raw fragments, and that made us wonder: what if we translated this into a frame-by-frame visual narrative inspired by Mandawa’s own fresco style?”

Located in the Shekhawati region, Mandawa, once a trading outpost for imports from China and the Middle East, is known today as the 'Open Art Gallery'. The interplay of so many cultures over centuries has left the town lined with havelis that are adorned with one-of-a-kind frescos. Kamachi Studios believed that the best way to honour these lanes, where every wall tells a story, was through a colourful animation.

Set against conversations with Gopal Singh Gaud, their camel guide, a story slowly began to unfold. They're not dramatic or embellished, they're just honest. When Kamachi Studios translated these moments into animation, the ordinary became mythic. The film, titled 'Chitragaatha', which means 'story in pictures' moves like a vivid painting in motion, drenched in shades of yellow, red and blue — the same hues that decorate Mandawa’s old havelis — as though pulled straight from a wall mural and coaxed into movement.

The film is not just about Mandawa, or frescos, or even a camel guide. It is about the quiet universality of devotion to one’s land and one’s craft. By choosing to tell an ordinary man’s story through the visual language once reserved for kings and gods, Kamachi Studios reminds us of the honest and real beauty that can be found in a land’s people. 

Follow Kamachi Studios on their Instagram here.

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