Nia (T&F)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Nia is a fictional standard gauge tank locomotive created by Andrew Brenner and Ian McCue with the help from The Royal African Society.

She made her debut in the 2018 special, Big World! Big Adventures!, and later became a new member of the Steam Team in the twenty-second series. She, alongside Rebecca replaced Edward and Henry in the main cast. According to Ian McCue, this was done to fix the gender imbalance at Tidmouth Sheds and diversify the Thomas and Friends franchise.

Voice
Nia is voiced by Kenyan-born British actress Yvonne Grundy in both English dubs of the series, and is portrayed with a thick African accent when speaking. Conspicuously though, she has a regular English accent whenever she sings.

CGI Model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. According to one of Nia's design sheets, she was initially known as "Kessie" and artists at Arc Productions had begun designing her appearance, which means that the conception of Nia began as late as July of 2016. In 2017, Nia was modelled in full CGI by Jam Filled Toronto for the 2018 film, Big World! Big Adventures!. The model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Texture variants
In addition to her standard livery, a few other texture variants exist of Nia's CGI model. These texture variants include:

Pantone Colours
The following pantone colours are used on Nia's CGI model:

Voice Actors

 * Yvonne Grundy
 * Patricia Kihoro
 * Yoshino Aoyama
 * Noa Kashpitzki
 * Franziska Trunte
 * Stephanie Gándara
 * Romina Marroquín Payró
 * Mara Brenner
 * Alma Naranjo
 * Heljä Heikkinen
 * Lia Mello
 * Laurinyecz Réka
 * Olga Kuznetsova
 * Jeong Yu-jeong
 * Kim Eun-a