Character Development: Duck-Billed Platypus

By Stuart Brown
The first thing I wanted to do when developing this character was look at his body type and anthropomorphism. I looked at making him bulky, athletic (like a swimmer would be) and shapes more like a strongman, (muscular but with a rounder belly) but ultimately I decided he looked best chubby. I think this is because Platypus' have quite a bit of fat (to keep them warm in colder waters), and in creating him to have a human-esque body, it needed to reflect the actual shape of the animal. It would probably add a comedy element, but as I wanted him to be a trans-media character that could be taken seriously, but his body type I felt could still be chubby, such as Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of The Rings, Shrek, and Kung Fu Panda.These characters are comedy characters but all contain emotional and heroic scenes in their films, that capture their character despite appearances.

After creating a good body, I looked into creating a costume. I looked at a wide range of ideas, superhero, detective, pirate, native American, bionic, nerdy, chavy, a swim suit, royalty, e.c.t. But in doing this, despite an open mind I felt using an aborigine design worked best. Not only are platypus' native to Australia also, but it worked with the strange but natural appearance of the Platypus itself. Most of the designs had this influence, but I wanted to explore it further.

The following eight images were designed with aborigine influence, but some still look slightly native American, all tribe like. This is a much closer representation of the character I am comfortable with, wacky, strange, but in his world he is used to this look is common and normal. The hard element was when a design had gone too far, when there wasn't enough, and finding the balance just right, leaving room for tribal markings I had the idea of adding. Thou I feel the design on the bottom, 2nd to left id my favorite, I'm going to look into tattoos and markings before deciding.

Before adding these marking, I felt it was important to understand what they mean, and get a somewhat early beginners level knowledge of aborigine symbols. I searched the web in-depthly and collected what I felt could be useful makings. I jotted these down so that in looking at my character when he's finished, people may understand the markings with this 'key.'

The next stage was adding these symbols. In doing these, I felt they had to have meaning. Why would he ink his body with meaningless symbols, 9 times out of 10 when people do it it is because of sentimentality, I felt that had to be his case. I used symbols that meant 'water' a lot to display his natural home. I also wanted this character to have a partner, also an Australian animal. I wanted this to be a possum (like in one of our original ideas) as they are of similar size and, such as the sugar gliding possum, very unique in appearance. In these designs I like the third (bottom) one most, I feel it contains the right amount of detail and imagery for the character.

Here is a collection of weapons I drew out for the character. Though I imagine him using many, I think the best option is simple, home made looking ones, such as a bow and arrow and a spear. I feel that a boomerang with spiked edges would work as they are also related to Australia and could be unique to him, as not many characters I can thing of use this as a signature weapon.

Here is a picture I drew of this character labelled to show my working, and why each section of him as been designed the way it is. I am very proud of my creation, and though I designed his three fingers and toes in attempt to look cartoony and simple to animate, I feel they aren't quite working. Besides this, I am very found of him.