Character Design- Refining Background Story

After speaking Justin in our second Character Design lecture, he suggested that I needed to do more work on the back story before I can really develop my characters. He also said that although the idea I originally had was pretty good I needed to make the ‘Indian and Robots’ theme stand out more. E.g. for the Indians, we associate them as a culture who lives of the land and is in tune with nature.

Seeing as my previous idea was to have nature trying to save the world from technology, I went back and added in more detail. Here are some ideas which were suggested by Justin that I could consider expanding on

-To separate carnivores from herbivores. The good guys are herbivores and the bad, carnivores.

- To add in my themes, the herbivores could be the Indians, characters and people who are in tune with nature and the carnivores, in tune with the industrial side of things live amongst the robots.

Based on the ideas suggested above, here’s the first draught of the world in which my character’s live.

The planet on which my characters live is exactly the same as Earth, except instead of the living organisms evolving into humans as we know it; they took on the forms of anthropomorphic creatures. With a humanoid body structure with features of animals. As time passed and intelligence grew, the creatures separated into two different groups. One was the herbivores, choosing to use nature to live. Using leaves, twigs and mud for their houses they formed villages through out the world. In some dense forests one or two cities. Their life style would consist of using plants not only for food and building materials, but for healing remedies.

The other group would be the carnivores. Over time they develop ways to use technology to beta their lives. Medicine is highly advanced thanks to the equipment to operate and buildings and other such structures are easily made with in days of being thought of. During this time, one carnivore discovers a way of creating a robot. Eventually the design for the robots starts to match the styles of the creatures around them. As the robots become more advanced and civilisation blooms, the carnivores are forced to drive the herbivores out of their homes to claim their land. Rather than let them live, the herbivores are simply killed. Those lucky enough to escape go and warn surrounding villages and word soon gets out. The robots soon become so advanced that they end up taking over the carnivores.

The idea for where my characters fit into the story is, one night a baby carnivore is born. However instead of being robotic they end up being natural, one of very few left in the carnivore civilisation, with fur instead of metal, teeth instead of bolts. With the help of the sidekick, the young carnivore is ushered out of one of the cities and into the wilderness. There the sidekick aims to hide amongst the herbivores in a secret camp, which consists of the two food chains. There the young hero would learn a series of skills which when they were old enough, they would use to defeat the robots and bring order back to the world.