Racoon Character Research

By Callum Brown

The Lone Ranger
Although the character firstly appeared as a radio show, then a comic book hero, then a Tv show, before movies were finally released, its disney's latest take on the character that I found the best, its shows the origin of the character, and unlike the racist media before, displays him as the lawyer and imbecile, who simply does not belong in the wild west, and it is his Native America partner Tonto who is the brave warrior, having followed his hero gun-slinger brother to find a criminal and witnessing his death as well as the deaths of all the rangers, he is brought back, but still the same idiot who died before, but as the troubled history of Tonto is revealed he begins to doubt his capability's to stop the villain, this is were we see John Reid become the hero Tonto has described, with less idiocy and more western attitude he takes on the mask and role of the lone ranger, and with Tonto's dignity restored we see both hero's face the enemy. The idea of a western hero with super-powers that are never fully told as factual or absent is really interesting to me, and I love some of the ideas that it gives me in terms of character traits.












Zorro
Zorro is light-hearted mexican western hero who has been around for generations. He is an iconic character and although there have been many incarnations my favourite has to be Antonio Banderas' version in 'The Mask of Zorro' its quirky, fun, cool, action adventure atmosphere has everything Zorro is supposed to represent, with great performances from Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones as well, its one of my childhood favourites. As far as the character goes its not unfamiliar to the Lone Ranger, both saw their brothers murdered and swore revenge, both wear a mask to hide their identities as the fight corrupt governments with personal interests at gain, both also display strangely upbeat atmosphere for a western, with alot of action and romance, maybe this is what draws me to them, its no secret that I enjoy superhero movies and westerns and these characters seem to mash these genres together.

John Marston
The lead character from Rockstars spectacular 'Red Dead Redemption' is in my opinion one of the greatest cowboy characters ever created, the cool silent type (most cowboys) is often hard to relate too, and sympathise with, they are moody, cool, quiet, men of few words, and with only a few hours of screen time it is often hard to relate to these characters. However Red Dead gives us a classic character and plenty of time to get involved with him, understand him, his harrowing tale that we play through really makes you feel like your living his story. The incredible environments and fitting soundtrack help to bring the world to life, and therefore make the experience more real, all helping the audience to really get attached to this character. His violent back story and twisted yet understandable ways of describing his former gang which he is now hunting in return for his family brings a whole stretch of history and character arcs to him, his ways are brutal but the way he describes the west and people in it is ahead of his time, again so he will be likeable to the audience, all of this I think helped to build one of, if not the most iconic Cowboy since westerns faded from our screens.

Rocket Raccoon
Without the film released its hard to talk about how the character will be cinematically, although there are short videos online deciphering how the motion captured  racoons movements, and are mixing them with CGI to create this hybrid of raccoon and human. We can tell from the comics his personality if feisty and aggressive, not unlike cowboys anyway, yet he has a damaged interior, a loveable side that the audience can feel for. His design is very unique, and I am highly anticipating how he will look onscreen, although there is not much to say at this point, I could not pass up the opportunity at looking into a raccoon-human hybrid, as my character idea was similar to begin with, so it is safe to look at to know to stay away from anything too similar. 

Han Solo
Perhaps the most famous loveable rouge, its hard not to evaluate Han Solo when creating a character of the same nature, his heroics, wit and charm all add to a likeable and relatable character that the audience cant help but love. I think he already had quite a western look to him for being in Sci-fi movie, there is a whole theory on how Star-Wars is technically a western but that is a conversation for another time. My point being I feel the character is not only worth looking at for his personality but for his costume too, the cream shirt and dark waistcoat is popular in western movies, especially in the rugged way he wears it. His quick draw from his side arm pistol is another very western trait, as is the whole famous bar sequence pictured, I feel overall the character is a cowboy in a lot of ways and feel it is a great inspiration for my character.

Sly Cooper
Although the character of Sly Cooper is not something I am entirely interested in, its clearly a similar design due to the bandit mask on a raccoon, something I have found after already thinking of the idea whist researching the native Americans myths about the racoons bandit mask in my earlier post. I was tempted to throw the idea away after seeing it on another raccoon character but have decided that a native American myth is not something that can be copyrighted, as I also thought of the same idea whilst reading the stories I'm sure a lot of other people have done similar things while creating raccoon characters, its an obvious trait that is a nice touch to a character, in my case giving him a mysterious presence.