04
November 2025
Fancy Horse Studio wins prestigious international Lazendorf-National Geographic PaleoArt Prize for Karoo Origins fossil exhibit
Cape Town-based Fancy Horse Studios has been awarded the international Lanzendorf Paleo Art Prize Digital Modeling and Animation award by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, marking the first time a South African project has won this prestigious international honour.
The winning exhibit is a CG animation depicting life at a waterhole in the Permian period, staged to represent a time, 255 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs, when mammal ancestors called therapsids dominated the land.
The waterhole, consisting of a CG animation, is housed at Karoo Origins: the Fossil Centre, a palaeontological research, exhibition and public outreach centre in Graaff-Reinet that presents the rich fossil record of the area and interprets it in exciting new ways for modern audiences.
Fancy Horse Studios was the production company responsible for the design, development, modelling, script and direction of the entire piece. They worked closely with local animators from Ferin Animation and sound engineers at Sound Foundry.
On awarding the prize, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s President, Stuart Sumida, said, “The Lanzendorf Awards are SVP’s highest awards for artistic achievement. We’re excited to have Fancy Horse Studios join that prestigious group of winners.”
See a video snippet of the animated exhibit here
A still of the Permian Waterhole at Karoo Origins: The Fossil Centre, the animation exhibit that won the Lazendorf-National Geographic Paleo Art Prize
Picture: Fancy Horse Studios
Translating Deep Time into Living Stories
The Award acknowledges Fancy Horse's extraordinary ability to bridge the gap between complex scientific research and compelling public experience.
Fancy Horse co-founders Dianne Makings and Colin Payne worked with Professor Bruce Rubidge to immerse themselves in the fossil record of the Karoo Supergroup — one of Earth's richest windows into prehistoric life — extracting narratives from millennia-old data and transforming dense academic research into an emotionally resonant journey through deep time.
The reconstructions of the creatures were sent to experts in the field (including scientists from South Africa, the United Kingdom, USA and Russia for peer review.) Using their feedback, the research and the creative talent in South Africa, Fancy Horse were able to deliver what is considered to be the most up-to-date reconstruction of these Permian Creatures.
Filming
The filmed scene was incredibly complex to make, with no cuts or zooms in order to create the feeling of looking out into the landscape of the Graaff-Reinet area 255 million years ago. The scene runs for a full 6 minutes and 15 seconds, then loops perfectly, creating a seamless experience, featuring 6 species interacting in an accurate environment at a Permian waterhole. The physical installation is life size - the Gorgonopsian appears on screen at 2.9 m long (its actual size).
The movements and behaviours of the animals was based on the most recent research into both the ecosystems of the time and the biomechanics understood from the fossils. Similar to the extraordinary Walking with Dinosaurs show, a variety of modern animals were studied and referenced in order to inform how the extinct creatures should be animated. The performance of the animated Gorgonopsian, for instance, was informed in part by a lion and a Komodo Dragon.
Fossil trackways, studied alongside the fossil bones, were used to determine the creature’s posture, gait, and how it would have moved.
"Our goal has always been to make complex ideas feel relatable and alive," said Colin Payne, co-founder and creative director at Fancy Horse. "We wanted this to be beautiful, but also as scientifically accurate as possible. To be recognised by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is extremely validating, and a great honour."
The studio's approach to the museum combined multiple disciplines: handcrafted sculpture, 2D and 3D animation and immersive installations that blur the boundaries between education and wonder. The result is an exhibition that doesn't just display fossils but transports visitors to the banks of ancient rivers where the earliest ancestors of modern mammals once thrived.
Co-Founder and Creative Director of Fancy Horse Studios, Colin Payne, at the Karoo Origins Fossil Centre in Graaf-Reinet
A World-Class Museum in the Karoo
Karoo Origins showcases 107 holotype specimens from the renowned Rubidge Collection — fossils that have shaped our understanding of life on Earth during the Permian period, 255 million years ago. The centre features a groundbreaking animated waterhole exhibit, the first of its kind globally, that brings the Permian landscape vividly to life.
The fossil collection was begun by the previous Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University’s Professor Bruce Rubidge’s family. On hearing the news about the Award he said, "I’m so excited that Karoo Origins has been awarded this very prestigious international prize as it is a great boon to South Africa. I especially wish to pay tribute to the design company Fancy Horse and its directors, Colin Payne and Dianne Makings, for creating this world-class palaeontological display in South Africa to showcase our enormous fossil heritage."
Since opening in April, Karoo Origins has welcomed over 1,100 visitors monthly, with numbers expected to reach 2,000 as word spreads of this extraordinary new attraction. The centre not only tells the story of ancient extinctions but connects them to contemporary conservation challenges — making the Karoo's fossil record urgently relevant to today's biodiversity crisis. The Karoo Origins Centre will be open throughout the holiday season closing only on Christmas and New Year’s Day.
An exhibit at the Karoo Origins Fossil Centre created by Fancy Horse Studios
The Beginnings of the Collection
The Rubidge Collection itself has a remarkable origin story. In 1934, a 10-year-old girl (Professor Bruce Rubidge’s aunt) asked her father what fossils were, sparking a family picnic that led to the discovery of a 250-million-year-old skull. That simple question ignited decades of fossil collecting by the Rubidge family, creating one of South Africa's pioneering paleontological collections.
Fancy Horse's design honours this legacy while making it accessible to new generations. Through carefully crafted exhibitions, visitors discover that 255 million years ago, during the age of supercontinent Pangaea, Graaff-Reinet stood at the very heart of Earth's connected landmass — making the town, as Professor Rubidge notes, "the hometown of all mammals, including us."
About the Lanzendorf–National Geographic PaleoArt Prize
The Lanzendorf–National Geographic PaleoArt Prize, established by John J. Lanzendorf, is the only art award presented by the scientific community that recognises achievements in paleontological visualisation and communication. It honours artists and studios whose work bridges the gap between scientific accuracy and creative expression, making the deep past tangible to modern audiences. https://vertpaleo.org/lanzendorf-national-geographic-paleoart-prize/
Credits
We worked with an incredible team of people. Thank you to all of you for your contribution
Writer & Director
Colin Payne
Producer
Dianne Makings
Art Director & Concept Art
Jeani Varty
Storyboards
Colin Payne and Jeani Varty
Creature Modeller
Grant Steyn
Line Producer
Kaydee de Villiers
Production Manager
Lateesha Gillepsie
Environment Modeller
Sean Maddock Wilkins
Emma Somer
Layout
Sean Maddock Wilkins
Animation Director
Andre de Villiers
Rigging
Xiong Lin
Animators
Wahyu Kristianto
Adrián Olivares Coronado
David Domingues
Lighting & Compositing
Sean Maddock Wilkins
Sound Engineers and Foley
Andrew Hoole
Floris le Roux