We’re thrilled to announce the winners of the maiden edition of the Creative Pot fund, an initiative to help creatives in Ghana thrive in their creative disciplines.

The first cycle focused on animation and illustration and this cycle’s winners are talented folks who primarily dabble in both animation and illustration. The winning projects range from comic book concepts, and animated shorts to stylized illustrations (abstract and portraiture).

These artists will earn a part of the total GHS10,000 pot – no strings attached – to help with equipment and assets for their individual projects.

Help us congratulate Charles, Gavin, Prince, Selorm and Zenock on their wins.

Enough talk. Below are more details of the winning entries to the inaugural Creative Pot fund.

Charles Peprah

Project Type: Illustration

The Black Woman’s Crown by Charles is an illustrated portrait series of black women highlighting the nuances of black hair (afro and locs) and skin colour and their place in race discourse.

Charles says of his project, “the hair of a person is artistically the second most distinctive way to identify a race. At this moment I knew the foundation for my project, The Hair of the black Woman.

Why the judges loved this?

Charle’s series on the black woman crown intrigued me. His style is creative. It does need a bit more of a push, but all in all I enjoyed his work.

Fanny Laba

More details of the project here.

Gavin Kendo

Project Type: Illustration

My life in color is an illustration project that tells the story of Gavin Kendo from a psychedelic lens. The pieces range from narrating the story of his first love to his journey of finding himself as an artist and his existential crisis.

As an African artist with a unique point of view, he has struggled a lot to find his voice in the vast world of art. This project is an answer to his internal turmoil.

Why the judges loved it?

Unique fine art paintings that are very lively, colourful and abstract. I don’t know what his goal is in detail but I hope he submits to art galleries..amazing stuff.

Natasha Nayo

Gavin Kendo’s work has a very surreal and whimsical quality to it. His works explore fantastical elements and his mastery of color and lighting is incredible.

Kofi Ofosu

More details of the project here.

Prince Ziwu

Project Type: Comic

A slice-of-life a comic series to help readers unwind by stringing together relatable, humorous stories of everyday life. The long term vision for the project is to evolve from a comic to an animated series to highlight.

Why the judges loved it?

Out of everyone, he has the most organised and well-written pitch project of his comic. Characters, colours and the pitch are memorable and eye-catching. I’m looking forward to seeing more of his work in the future!

Natasha Nayo

His character style is quite interesting. We definitely need to see more comics that is relatable to us, but not the “cliche” African caricature we are used to seeing. He also has some potential to cross over to the corporate Memphis style, it would be great to see more Africans leveraging that style. Very creative concept & illustrations

Fanny Laba

See more details of the project here.

Selorm Agbanyo

Project Type: Character Design & Comic

Selorm submitted unique character designs, along with a sample comic page and some animation work, showcasing his extensive talent. The judges loved the variety and the unique expressions he captured with his work.

Why the judges loved it?

Selorm Agbanyo’s work has a lot of potential and promise. He has very interesting characters and illustrations and to top it all off, he’s a great animator also.

Kofi Ofosu

This artist has a lot of unique character designs and characters. I really enjoy their expressive faces and the animation is pretty good too.

Natasha Nayo

See more of his project here.

Zenock Gyimah

Project Type: Animation

The Crusader is an animated project about empowerment, told through the eyes of a woman whose bravery impacted an entire kingdom.

As you might have guessed, the short is inspired by the story of Yaa Asantewaa and her struggle to preserve the Golden Stool, the most prized treasure of the Ashanti Kingdom.

Why the judges loved it?

I read about their movie pitch and saw their visual development art. It’s very nicely done! Beautiful background art and a beautiful project to backup.

Natasha Nayo

More project details here.

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Took a while, but the list is finally here. Our winners for the maiden cycle of the creative pot, an initiative by  to help creatives thrive in their areas of discipline.

We hope to be able to carry this on for long, and thanks to all the partners who have supported us so far.

We’ve divvied up our GHS10,000 pot and distributed it to these talented guys to help them purchase creative tools and also help them with their projects. Can’t wait to see how far they go in their creative endeavours.

This couldn’t have been possible without the support of the organizations and people listed below:

New Comma, Lime x Honey, dEX, Effect Studios, ADPList, cayda., The Zeus 360, James Badour, Eli, Sarah Selig (Catalyst Press).