In Jaipur, a small animation studio is betting that ancient India can be a setting for cinema, not just for children’s content.
Jaipur is a city built on craft. Its architecture, its jewelry, its centuries-old miniature painting tradition all rely on the same instinct: that detail and texture carry meaning. It’s an unusual place to find an animation studio chasing Hollywood-level production values, but for Night Tiger Animation Studios, the location isn’t incidental. It’s part of the pitch.
Founded in November 2025 by Jayant Kumar, Abhi Singh, and Medha Yadav, Night Tiger is an independent studio built around a single early project: Boy King, a 90-minute animated feature set thousands of years ago in ancient India. The story follows a young prince forced to prove he has not just the strength to fight, but the judgment to rule, a kingdom shadowed by magic, monsters, and inherited expectations he isn’t sure he wants.
Kumar spent a decade in animation across the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, including a stint as Senior Animator at Framestore London, contributing to Spider-Man, F1: The Movie, Moon Knight, Aquaman, and 1917, before returning to India to build something of his own. Abhi Singh brings over a decade of visual effects experience; Medha Yadav leads operations and investor relations.
A Visual Language Built From Restraint, Not Polish
What sets Boy King apart from most animation associated with India isn’t just its scale, it’s what the studio is choosing to leave rough. Rather than aiming for a glossy, saturated look, Night Tiger’s visual direction pulls from Caravaggio’s use of shadow, Bernini’s treatment of marble, and Bouguereau’s rendering of the human form. Palaces, forests, and faces are being built to look weathered and lived-in rather than pristine.
“We’re still a small team figuring a lot of this out,” Kumar said. “But we’d rather move slowly and get it right than rush something we’re not proud of.”
Sound As Foundation, Not Afterthought
The proof of concept trailer was also a chance to test the film’s sound design early. Composer George Bjorvik and producer Adam Traister of Audiobrew, working alongside Emmy Award-winning sound designer Ian Chase, helped shape Boy King‘s sonic foundation, giving the team a clearer sense of what the finished film could feel like, not just look like.
The direction they landed on is a deliberate East-West fusion: a rock-driven score built around metal guitar, layered with traditional Indian instrumentation. It’s an unconventional choice for a mythological setting, but one meant to underline the film’s tone: ancient material treated with a modern, physical intensity rather than a purely classical or devotional sound.
Building Something That Doesn’t Borrow Its Identity
Night Tiger has been careful about how it frames its own ambitions. The team has pushed back on comparisons to Western studios, insisting the goal isn’t to replicate a formula that already exists elsewhere. Private viewings at Annecy and MIFA 2026 in France gave the studio an early, informal read on how the project lands with people who work in animation for a living.
That reception matters to a studio trying to avoid two traps at once: being dismissed as devotional or children’s content, and being flattened into “India’s version” of an existing brand.
What Comes Next
The proof-of-concept trailer for Boy King is live on Night Tiger’s YouTube and Instagram, and has already reached an early view milestone. But for the studio, the trailer is a starting point, not a finished pitch, a way to bring collaborators and industry partners into a world still being built.
For a studio only a few months old, working out of Jaipur rather than Mumbai or Los Angeles, that patience is itself a statement: that an original Indian animated feature is worth building slowly, and worth building at home.
To follow Boy King‘s progress, visit nighttiger.in or the studio’s Instagram page.
