Our History

Mimian Animations is an Animation Studio in Perth, Scotland. They have made many great films and TV shows over the years such as Sticky the Stickman, A Parkrun Adventure, Snowman, Holly & Timmy Mania and A Trip to the Hospital. They have won many awards over the course of their history and in 2019 underwent a partnership with film company Reuben Studios. In recent years they are now making their first major picture, A Weekly Comic Film: Gone Bunnynapping.

Beginnings (2009-2012)

The company started as a basic short animation studio. They used a program on their computers just to make small stickman animations and post them on social media. They made these animations in an old shed, old, dusty, but the foundation of the company we see today! The company continued to make these until 2012, when they received a phone call from a school who had seen their work, and wanted them to produce a small informational video about the school. This would lead to the creation of Sticky the Stickman, a character who made a significant return in 2023 with his new redesign and world. In the ad, Sticky could be seen doing Physical Education, Maths, English and all that stuff kids kind of hate, however it brought Mimian’s first ever character to life.

The Discovery (2016-2019)

In 2016, Mimian was riding high with the success of their commercials starring Sticky, however, he himself and his world were in 2D animation. So where did Mimian’s identity for clay animation come from? Well that started in 2016, when Mimian Animations Co-founder Gregg Parsons came across a form of animation called stop-motion. It was very similar to 2D animation and seemed maybe even a little easier to do. After 2 years of practice the work finally paid off with Mimian Animations’ First short film, A Walk in the Park, Although the film does differ the title slightly. Whilst the film may only be 4-5 minutes long, It still started Mimian's Legacy and paved the way for their future. The film included Reuben Parsons and is Reuben's first ever commitment to animation and entertainment in general at the age of 5. The film also starred Freddie Parsons, who would go on to create the widely praised Teddymation short film, Ozzie & Peri: The Movie, and even starred Gregg Parsons himself as the narrator. A Walk in the Park would eventually get a sequel in 2019, titled A Trip to the Hospital, which would improve a ton of things over the original and still would remain Mimian's most successful short film, But not their most iconic. The film would introduce tons of new characters, bigger sets and the imfamous feet plot-twist. It proved to be successful and even caught the eye of another famous company that would pave the way for Mimian. The film saw Reuben & Freddie return to their roles and Freddie would also voice some of the background characters as well as himself. A Trip to the Hospital made Mimian become an international success, and when another company one day came over to see them, the company would only get bigger...

The Reuben Studios Partnership (2019-2020)

A few weeks after A Trip to the Hospital was released worldwide, Reuben Studios, A Company that had made the major successful character Mimi, one day saw Mimian's work and approached them with a deal. The deal would be that Mimian could make larger budget films and commercials, make feature films for cinemas and the rights to use some of Reuben Studios' Characters. Mimian thought about it, before signing the contract and was now aboard the Reuben Company. The made up word "Mimian" was already a pretty similar word to Mimi, so some people even before the contract was signed thought Mimian Animations was a Reuben Studios owned company already. The partnership is still very strong to this very day, and Mimian predictably will not back out of the deal until a long hall of years.

Playmobil, Stickbots & Crazy Stars (2021-2023)

The first few years of the partnership were filled to the brim with great films, starting with A Parkrun Adventure, their most iconic film to date. Reuben & Freddie yet again returned along with a new actor, Olive Parsons, who would play the smaller sister in the newly formed Playmobil Family. Reuben, Freddie & Olive are one day going to Parkrun, a fun run that happens every Sunday, and everything goes normal until Olive comes up with the idea of taking a shortcut! The next part shows the Trio cutting through the shortcut whilst behind them, various dinosaurs and prehistoric animals follow them through the path. Then Olive shouts the word Dinosaur and they all quickly get out and back on the main road. But the Dinosaur follows, and eventually (And mistakenly) ends up coming out in 1st place! A Parkrun Adventure proved to be successful, with even the actual real Parkrun fun run mentioning Mimian’s new film on their social media. The team at Mimian would finally take a departure from the Playmobil franchise for a year and experiment with new franchises, most notably Stickbot Adventures. This very short lived series was made in 2021 by the two Mimian voice actors, Reuben & Freddie Parsons. Though Reuben’s episodes would come out on top, and eventually led to him making a spinoff to their popular Playmobil franchise called The Reuben Show. The Stickbot series would not last long however, with Mimian cancelling it in early 2022. In the same year A Parkrun Adventure debuted Mimian would test something new with their next short film, Lip Sync (Not to be confused by the Mimian project using those words). Twinkle, Twinkle Crazy Starwould feature two blobs of clay that would sing the song mentioned in the title, then the purple blob starts to float into the air and transform into a star himself. Complete with Out-takes and the models moving their lips to the lyrics, it remains Mimian’s only film to feature it. This era was a great start for Mimian & their partnership with Reuben Studios, however their next few years going into the present day would become some of the company’s best years ever.

The Return of Sticky the Stickman and Holly & Timmy (2024-Present)

In late 2023, Mimian would open job listings for 2D animators. At the time many people speculated this could maybe mean Mimian’s oldest franchise Sticky the Stickman might be returning to TV screens, and so it was that in October of that year Sticky would return in an all new form and world in his revival show. The series was unfortunately cancelled a few months later due to the fact that Reuben Studios had found distributing these episodes under their Reuben Studios Motion Pictures company was hard to do. The series consisted of only 3 episodes and one special, coming out in Christmas. However, not all is lost for Sticky as due to Mimian launching their Animators Wanted!campaign in 2025, this could mean if new 2D animators were hired, Mimian could continue producing new episodes and maybe even short films if good enough. In July 2024, Reuben Studios had started preparing a new kids television series called Holly & Timmy Mania, a show that would be the sequel to Mimian’s super successful Holly & Timmy Rescue Rangers series. The older show was made using Reuben Studios’ very famous and unique film technique called Teddymation. Reuben Studios had used it to create the brilliant Mimi Happy Days series and their movies too. With one had been released that same year and one coming out later that same year. Reuben Studios had originally planned to make Holly & Timmy Mania in that same way but could not due to the Teddymation resources been used on making their new film. So the company had to find a different way to make this new series. In early August they approached Mimian about the show and if they could animate it. Mimian agreed and created Holly & Timmy Mania using Claymation. The series was a huge hit, with episodes still being made today and new ones coming soon. The success of their groundbreaking new series made Reuben Studios allow them to make a special short film for the Christmas season, Snowman. Not to be confused by The Snowman (1982), this new short film would use new special effects and was made with brilliant sets and Clay models. The film would see Reuben Parsons (Voice of Reuben in the Playmobil films and Holly & Timmy in both their shows and films) & Olive Parsons (Voice of Olive in Playmobil films and E.V.E. from Holly & Timmy Mania) return to voice new characters, Reuben voicing Adam & The Snowman and Olive voicing Adam’s Mum & The Christmas fairy. The story was of Adam making a Snowman and later in the night it comes alive. Whilst this story was a little similar to The Snowman from Channel 4, this film had many twists and humour the older film had no appearance of such as the snowman finding out he’s British and the fairy seen to be bringing him alive. The film was a big success for both companies, with the film nicely fitting into Reuben Studios’ Christmas timetable alongside their newest Teddymation feature film, Around the World in 81 Days. The Mimian company over these past few years had changed their brand a lot since 2016, Back in that year there logo featured on it Mimian Animations and an image of a Stickman silhouette, obviously representing Sticky the Stickman (The company’s mascot at the time). And since 2021, their logo featured Mimi either blasting through a sheet of paper as seen in A Parkrun Adventure or being modelled in Clay in the logo that has been used since Holly & Timmy Mania. In early December, shortly after the second episode of Holly & Timmy Mania was made, Mimian entered it in for a competition at Glasgow in Scotland. The episode Chilli2000 was nominated for their Children’s animated series award alongside a few others and even one from the BBC. And Chilli2000 won the award. It was Mimian’s first ever award and since they were a small company still, it was a pretty big moment for them. In January 2025, Mimian would strike a deal with the Show Racism the Red Card Charity, this deal would see Mimian create a short film with that same name. Show Racism the Red Card seemed to prove popular around UK schools, with it being showed by the charity for children in school, and it still gets shown to this very day! The short was created at a record breaking time, only taking one whole afternoon of a day to complete between the hours of 13:19 & 19:26 due to their deadline being midnight. However they made it in the end! Mimian would then start making a new short film like Snowman for the TV Channel REUB2, this would be titled Artist’s Dream and it was a film about a wooden man who finds himself mucking about in his master’s art studio. This short wasn’t the best experience for everyone at Mimian, but it was successful, with it winning yet another competition alongside Snowman. Mimian would start including this film along with others in their Mimian Animations Vol.1 DVD for Reuben Studios. Artist’s Dream also included Mimian biggest model to date, the Wooden man himself standing well above the Mimi model, which had being the tallest previously. After another Holly & Timmy Maniaepisode and some television idents for REUB2, Mimian was trying to think up of ideas on what the company should do next. Not so long ago they had raised money for multiple charities with their new short film Turning Zone: Starring Holly & Timmy (Or just Turning Zone for short), what they didn’t know was that this one film, their biggest project yet had just captured the eyes of a kids comic-making company that may have just wanted a shot at a partnership with Mimian, one that would spawn Mimian’s biggest & largest film to date.

A Weekly Comic Film: Gone Bunnynapping (2025)

At this point Mimian had not made a feature or 30 minute short film for Reuben Studios, and the idea of transitioning to any of them seemed to be a risky move, however one day shortly after Turning Zone had been released, a company named The Weekly Comic Group would approach Mimian and pitch to them the idea of a film themed around it’s comical universe. It seemed like something big, the storyboard they had made for the first scene seemed to be full of ideas and Mimian knew this would probably be their jump to 30 minute films. After their meeting Mimian came to Reuben Studios Hollywood Studios and asked them if they could make the film, and they said yes. They were hoping for an April release in 2025 however, which to Mimian seemed impossible as they were only in February. The film would later be scheduled for August that same year. Much better in Mimian’s eyes. Shooting for the first scene started on 19th March 2025, 1 month after the original meeting took place. Before the British Summer Holidays they had completed 3 scenes and had started the 4th. Mimian had one problem though, who were going to help fund and distribute this project? Not so far away from Mimian’s main headquarters, Cinematic Studios, a company that had only opened their doors 1 year ago said to Mimian if they could help do those honours as well as provide clay for models and help with filming and casting. Mimian immediately agreed with the newly found company owner, Alex Neil, who would go on to also produce the film alongside Reuben Parsons (A familiar name within the Mimian brand) & Troy Bertes, the two directors. With everything sorted out, Mimian finally got to proper work on their new masterpiece, with a groundbreaking 32 people helping and working on the film. The film saw Reuben voice himself (again) along with Paul Mc Cluskey (Easter Bunny), Olek Kaczòwka (Narrator), Jamie Duncan (Poop) and many more actors. Cinematic Studios and Reuben Studios gave Mimian Animations a combined 1.2 million pounds budget, this would result in Mimian buying out a new space of land specially for 30 minute and feature films, the North Inch Community Campus. What helped was that this studio was not far from Mimian’s headquarters at all, only just a couple of streets down and you’ll find it. Most of the Storyboarding, Set designing, Voice recording and Animation was all done at this one place. Whilst the film was being made, a nearby building had went on fire. This building had once been Balhousie School and had only closed it’s gates 2 years before the fire. Whilst the building had been abandoned for the last couple of years, Mimian and Reuben Studios used it as a storage space for their older films, so some of Mimian’s sets and models for past films had been kept there. Back in 2005 a similar incident happened with a building in Bristol going on fire, which had contained resources from Aardman Animations, however this time Mimian found themselves lucky. Only a week before the fire, Mimian & Reuben Studios had taken out almost everything from the building for an exhibition, so none of Mimian’s assets were harmed. Anyway, back to the film! Gone Bunnynapping is (As of writing this wiki) unfinished and is still in development, however Mimian and Reuben Studios along with Cinematic Studios have already started planning for a new film set for release in 2026. It is said the film will take inspiration from the highest grossing stop motion animated feature, Chicken Run (2000) , Which is already based on The Great Escape.