Main Character design boards.

After visiting these Zoo's and looking at me and my brothers collective images and expirences, we decided on what some of the lead characters would be, and cosidering what part of the world they're from, we designed them, (unless they had moved country at an early age). We also considered what kind of existing characters would influence this character archetype and what animal would suit that role (for example, Hellboy was an influence for character 1, and as he is often called 'red ape' it made sense this character to be a large ape). Something else that influeced the animals we chose was what advantages or 'superpowers' those animals have, something we have considered exaggerating for the characters.

For example, a gorilla is a generally peaceful animal that will become very protective if he or his faimly are threatened. This made for a good hero character as he also is a hebivore, but doesn't get hunted by any predator which makes him seem tough, someone who would stick up for the less fortunate against predators and not hunt others. He also has gripped feet to make him and excellent climber and also possess 'super strength', as gorilla's are thought to be approximatly 10-20 times as strong as a adult human man, thought this has never been scientifically proved.

The reason I chose a Duckbilled Platypus for Bill was the influence from these characters that always look wacky or wierd, always judged upon appearence who often prove themseleves heroic at a later date. I wanted the audicene to pre-judge this character. Platypus' are animals that are, by nature, strange, and suprising. They look comical, but are vemonous and like a reptile, lay egges, have a beak and webbed feet like a duck,  have fur like a mammal, and posses a 6th sense when under water to sense their pray. They are dangerous and have enough venom to kill the average sized dog.

Jennifer was a tricky character to design. She was intended to be 'sexy' but still fit this anthropomorhic world, which was a challenge in itself. How do you make an animal sexy? She was also supposed to be a character who was something of a femme fatal who is schizophrenic, a condition I have always been intreseted in. The character I wanted to design had to combine alot of elements that are hard to pull together. The reason I chose a rabbit, was that its iconic features, (big ears and feet) are not located on its body, allowing the character to have a more human female physique, and still look like a rabbit. There is also the conotation to Playboy but this isn't a reason I chose the animal. Rabbits have incredible hearing and a nearly 360° panoramic vision, allowing them to detect predators from all directions, they also have extremely strong hind limbs which allow them to leap great distances. They can jump up to one metre high and three metres long, and can run between 27 and 45 mph, which are both in comarison to there size is very impressive. This also gives Jenny her array of 'powers.'

For a the next character, She was intended to be this skilled hunter. A feared warroir from a foriegn land (possibly East).  So when considering the animal who could be this character, I considered using a tiger as they are powerful, feared, elegant and strong hunters. And to use the character I already had designed made sense, as a Tiger as a native American didn't even make geological sense, so I just had to adapt this costume. The tiger gives the character long sharp claws, excellent night vision (about six times as good as a humans), great balance and stealth, which made sense for her to be an archer.