Payut Ngaokrachang

In 2017, he was featured as a Google Doodle on what would have been his 88th birthday.

A second traditionally animated feature, The Life of Buddha, produced by Wallapa Pimthong, was released on December 5, 2007.

In 2006, Thailand's first computer-animated feature film, Khan Kluay, about King Naresuan the Great's war elephant, was released. It was directed by Kompin Kemgunerd, who worked on various Disney features such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Tarzan, and Blue Sky Studios' Ice Age. Although the work was mostly done on computers, Kompin faced many of the same difficulties in funding and human resources that Payut faced.

His next animated film wasn't made until 1992, when he was subsidized by Film of Japan to make a film for educating girls under the title My Way.

The 82-minute feature was released on Songkran Day, April 13, 1979.

While keeping his day job at USIS, Payut began work in 1976 on The Adventure of Sudsakorn, featuring a character from one of Thailand's most famous literary works, Phra Aphai Mani by the poet Sunthorn Phu. Sudsakorn, the boy hero, is the son of a mermaid and a wandering musician-prince, and his adventures include fights with an elephant, a shark, a dragon horse, as well as encounters with a king, a hermit, a yogi, a magic wand and ghosts.

In 1960, he created a short cartoon called A Boy and A Bear (เด็กกับหมี Dek Kap Mi) for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which called for unity in order to combat communism.

Payut only made one animated film for the USIS, a 20-minute recounting of the story of Hanuman, the white monkey in the classic Ramayana. Made in 1957, it was called Hanuman in Danger (หนุมานเผชิญภัย Hanuman Phachoen Phai). It was a propaganda work, with a red monkey representing communism.

In 1955, while he was recovering from an illness, Payut set about animating a cartoon he had been drawing for a newspaper. In the cartoon, Miracle Happens (เหตุมหัศจรรย์ Het Mahatsachan), a policeman directs traffic, swaying to the tune of music in the manner of Thai classical dancers. A woman starts crossing the street when the zipper on her dress splits, diverting the policeman's attention with the result that cars pile up all around him.

The 12-minute short premiered on July 5, 1955, at Sala Chalermthai Theater.

In 1944, he enrolled in classes to become an art teacher. Payut studied by correspondence with illustrator Hem Vejakorn, whose work was seen on the covers of 10-satang pulp novels. Through their letters back and forth, Hem introduced Payut to drawing.

"I had been a fan of Khru Hem’s drawings since 1944, when I was 14. So, I wrote him asking to become his student. He was a great teacher and taught me a lot, from how to draw anatomy to getting the right perspective on paintings. I learned all this from his letters," Payut told The Nation newspaper in a 2004 interview.

One of Payut's influences was artist Sanae Klaikluen, whom Payut had met in 1941. Sanae was interested in animation and wanted Payut to join him in a project. Sanae was commissioned in 1945 to make a one-minute animated film for the Thai government, which was campaigning to get citizens to wear hats and farmers to wear boots. Sanae died a year later, and it was then that Payut decided he wanted to be an animator.

Payut Ngaokrachang (Thai: ปยุต เงากระจ่าง, April 1, 1929 – May 27, 2010) was a Thai cartoonist and animator. He created Thai cinema's first cel-animated feature film, The Adventure of Sudsakorn.