Plot And Summary

So, what’s my opening about?

When I was younger, one of the people in my life used to tell me that life consists of two people: the rabbits and the lions. The way we live isn’t much different than a jungle. There’s the predator and there’s the prey.

That idea always stuck with me and when I needed to get myself a new character, the memory of that allegory came back.

I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be funny if my bunny character acted like a lion?”. Thus, my little animal creation began taking form.

I based the rabbit off of the African Savanna Hair as I thought Africa might complement my interest for exotic animals. Well, the hares of that region aren’t the most special, per se, but they do have fun attributes.

Firstly, they’re very speedy, being able to run at 65 kilometres per hour. What’s most interesting, however, is what happens to them during spring. Usually, these rabbits are timid and do not put up much of a fight. In spite of that, when March arrives, the hares become crazy.

To achieve copulation, bucks try to hook up with female rabbits, a competitive event of sorts. Usually, these two genders meet and pair up from the get go but on some occasions, female rabbits don’t want to bring attention to themselves and might even fend off potential mates. When this happens, the bunnies begin to box with each other, trying to achieve their own interests.

The best part is that they begin to stand up on their hind legs like cartoon characters and throw fists at each other. I’m not sure if any cartoon documented this but it gave me the idea of having my hare be this Arnold-Schwarzenegger-type character who is blunt and has an uncapped source of power.

The idiom, “Mad As A March Hare” came to mind. Turns out, there is already a cartoon bunny that already works of a rabbits eagerness to reproduce, Alice In Wonderland’s March Hare.

I wasn’t going to compete with such an iconic cartoon so I gave up on my rabbit having any lunatic tendencies. I chose to focus on strength instead.

Once I knew with what type of critter I was working with, I began doing simple studies of them in real life.

Here’s another…

Afterwards, I started planning out his look. I gave my little friend a lion’s mane and a very grumpy expression. I made his eyes small to make him look more distant.

I’ve decided to base his personality on Conan The Barbarian. Following this choice, some aspects of the character’s identity are parodies of Conan.

Coincidentally, Arnold played Conan in the comic’s adaptation so I guess everything went full circle.

I gave my protagonist a cool name to be fitting with his character. I eventually came up with RABNULF THE LAGOMORPH.

I gave my rabbit a smaller companion to balance out the toughness. A little baby lion which is heir to savana royalty, accidentally dropped by a stork and now in the care of Rabnulf.

Rabnulf’s goal is to bring the King and Queen their baby. Why does he do this? Because he has a tragic backstory of course! Every strong hero has one! And what better tragic backstory to have than force the protagonist to watch their entire family get massacred by a warlord, just like Conan!

Here’s Rabnulf’s mama and papa.

Who’s the warlord? Well, I had to find to find an animal which preys on rabbits and looks viscous.

Luckily for me, I found an animal which is just BEGGING to be an antagonist in a cartoon, the Shoebill Stork.

It’s great! I began sketching him and tried to figure out the most defining features of such a villainous looking bird.

As time went on, the character quickly became caricatured.

This one ticks the evil box, but it doesn’t have a funny enough anatomy so I anthropomorphised him a little.

And I kept caricaturing the bird until I arrived with this.

I think the version below best fits the balance I wanted to achieve between menacing and playful. I called him Neckfeathers and placed a hook on the top of his beak for the sake of it.

Not all birds are bad, though. The stereotypical stork is associated with birth and life. I wanted my stork delivery character to reflect that.

I kept trying different head shapes. I noticed the black markings on stork faces but decided to not use them for my design as I was afraid that it wouldn’t work as well with the bigger oval eyes that I planned to use.

I also gave him a rooster tail because it matched his flamboyant look.

I remember the design for the beak being challenging. I decided on giving the beak a bit of a curve because it leaves more space for the mouth.

As for colours, I originally thought of Rabnulf as having white fur but I changed him to the more biologically accurate brown fur. After all, it wouldn’t make any sense for a bunny to have a white coat in the dessert! I think the white fur just came about because that’s just how he looks in black and white.

I named the stork Oolievar as a nod to the South African term for stork, “Ooievaar”. I combined that word with one of the most recognised orphan names in history, Oliver Twist. The idea of pairing the word with Oliver came when I realised that it’s (partially) the Stork’s fault that the baby lion hasn’t met his parents yet.

I gave Oolievar a pink beak later on and matched it with a more reddish outfit.