More characters!

I've been playing around on Photoshop for a while and made some more portraits of my characters. I figured I'd at least introduce these character for new comers this time, so I'll give some details here. 

First up is Bhim and Ambika, the cobra and mongoose duo. Bhim (the mongoose) is sort of a jerk. He's extremely pugnacious and hard-headed, but easily wimps out if he winds up fighting something bigger, like a tiger or a python. Ambika (the cobra) is the opposite. She's friendly and shy. She's sort of a wildflower and has figured out that the Bhim is actually hypnotized by her beautiful dancing and singing, which she uses to her advantage in tight spots. They have a kind of frienemy-ish relationship.

I got inspiration for these two after watching Animal Planet and saw a mongoose and a cobra fight in real life. Most of the time, the mongoose is the winner of these fights but I always wondered if the cobra would ever win and how. The musical numbers are also inspired by Eartha Kitt when she was younger with the visual style of Bollywood films. The point of this series is to hopefully have people change their thoughts on snakes. In reality, most snakes are like Ambika: they don't want to fight or bite. They just want to be left in peace.

 Then we have Chilé, a chinchilla with a very fiery personality. A tad brash, Chilé will always act before thinking about it making him believe he can do anything. Even if he comes off as cocky, he's far from it. Chilé is actually very chivalrous and always willing to help even if the odds are against him. Especially for a woman. Chilé is also an amorous creature who's up to sacrificing himself for any pretty face. He happens to have one certain weakness: he also is a habitual cleaner. He'll clean anything that looks dirty with his long, bushy tail since he dislikes filth. Chilé needs to keep his fur away from water which is why he prefers to bathe in volcanic dust.
Chilé was inspired by my pet chinchilla, Kirby, and several viewings of Disney's The Three Caballeros. His outfit is based on a huacho, the Chilean equivalent of a cowboy.

More characters will come later. Keep tuned!

Cobra and Mongoose Redux

These are two characters I almost forgot about, the Cobra and Mongoose. They do have drawings here, you'll just have to go back to when I started this blog. Here they are with character profiles as I first drew them.

Some changes are that the mongoose's body and head are now more streamlined and almost like the real animal. The cobra, on the other hand, now has a smaller hood and head, a more outgoing and friendly personality, and is now a girl character.

They're still pretty much the same characters after all these years, though the cobra's has changed a little. Like I said earlier, she's friendly and outgoing, but she's not as scared of the mongoose as before.

Below is a colored model sheet to show what colors I used to create them. The cobra's now more brown and the mongoose is now more grey, just like the animals they're based on.

Guess Who?

Credits for the cartoons, The Devil and Fred and Lenny and Pet Peeves.

Pet Peeves

In India, the Gupta family have a rat problem. While the wife claims that a mongoose is the best way to control rats, the husband (for whatever reason) thinks a tame cobra is the way. So they find one of each animal and make a deal with them: whoever gets rid of the rats first stays. So the two of them try their own ways to earn their keep. The mongoose, however, tries to mess up the poor cobra's methods. Which one will stay?

The Cobra and the Mongoose

Meet the cobra and mongoose, another (and the last) cartoon pair of mine. The series is a play on the predator-prey cartoon formula, but with a twist.

In short, the mongoose is a real jerk. He's extremely pugnacious and hard-headed, but easily wimps out if he winds up fighting something bigger, like a tiger or a python.
The cobra, on the other hand, is extremely timid. He's absolutely terrified of the mongoose and would rather run than fight. This more peaceful personality allows him to make easy friends with some other animals, though some are reluctant...

I got inspiration for these two after watching Animal Planet and saw a mongoose and a cobra fight in real life. Most of the time, the mongoose is the winner of these fights but here, the cobra actually has the winning streak.

The point of this series is to hopefully have people change their thoughts on snakes. In reality, most snakes are like this cobra - they don't want to fight or bite. They just want to be left in peace.

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I like to think of stories for characters, too. Here's my first example, "Pint-Sized Pachyderm". Here, two bums, Fred the crocodile and Lenny the hippo read an ad in the newspaper about a $50000 prize for catching the world's smallest elephant. So the two travel to Africa and try to make a catch, but fail with each attempt. When they finally catch the little elephant, they find out there's a smaller one they missed! For character analysis, Fred's the smarter one of the two. Fred usually has all the ideas, but they're never very good or successful. Lenny's a loyal lummox who acts as Fred's best friend and second banana. Lenny also has the habit of calling Fred "George". (let's see if you can catch the joke on that.) He's super strong but also not the shiniest apple on the tree...