I thought of an idea set in a world of modern, civilized, anthropomorphic animals, like Zootopia and Beastars. Despite predator character's clever strategies, determined and energetic mindset, large size, and exceptional overall intelligence, she rarely succeeds in getting the best of prey character, mainly because of prey's cunning abilities, and his/her luck. The series follows attempts of a female predator attempting to catch and eat her prey. I thought of two prey characters and 3 predator characters, and I like to know which one of each is your favourite. By the way, I don’t have an official name for each character so I give them a nickname until I can come up with an official name, unless that you like the nicknames.
Let’s start with Jinx, an unlucky rabbit, he is very chipper and sunny dwarf rabbit happy-go-lucky attitude. He is the first two characters I’ve drawn, makes him the oldest among the characters The inspiring came from Br’er Rabbit and Roger Rabbit.
Dodger is a troublemaking, athletic tomboy squirrel. She described as an excited, carefree and cheeky. She can be known for being brash and erratic. She succeeds by her speed and wits rather than by brawn. The inspiration behind Dodger came from Jerry the Mouse, Screwy the Squirrel, Slappy the Squirrel and Sandy Cheeks.
Now for the predator characters, there’s Roxanna. She is a lumberjack grizzly bear. She could be a potential rival to Dodger since that Roxanna cuts down the tree, as well as other things like blocking the stream with her damn, causing Dodger’s favourite swimming hole to dry up. The inspiration was loosely based on Smokey the Bear, although she wouldn’t cause wildfire, she is a contrast to Smokey as she chops down trees, which is someone’s home as part of being a lumberjack, and other potential harmful damage to nature. Her name came her Teddy Ruxpin.
Next is Lisa. She is also the first two character I drawn alongside with Jinx. Originally, I had hard time deciding if she would be a wolf or a fox, but then, I decided to go with a silver fox because I thought that she can be a fox but with a fur colour of a wolf. She is a crafty fox that is in constant pursuit of Jinx. Lisa continuously chases after Jinx, for whom she sets traps. Her inspiration came from Loona from Helluva Boss and Br’er Fox, Br’er Rabbit’s nemesis, which fun fact, I just learned that in some countries, like Italy, Br'er Fox is female due to "fox" being a word of female gender. Her name came from Kuma Lisa, a character who is a fox from Bulgarian and Ukrainian folklore. She usually plays the role of the trickster, as an archetype. Many Bulgarian folk tales as well as authored works use the character of Kuma Lisa. In many tales Kuma Lisa is encountered with another character known as Kumcho Vulcho - a wolf which is opposite to her and very often suffers from her tricks. This is where I get the idea of making her a silver fox.
Lastly and the most recent is Poppy, the giant river otter who does yoga. However, she is more of an amalgamation of different species of Mustelidae, a family of carnivorous mammal, mainly ferret, weasel, marten and giant river otter. The idea came from the word referred to ferret from urban dictionary, ‘’cat snake’’ because they have mammalian characteristics of a cat but are long and squirmy like a snake. I like to imagine that Poppy is sneaking around by slithering on a floor similar what the Grinch did when he’s stealing presents and Christmas decorations. She has long, slender bodies, which enable them to follow their prey into burrows like a weasel. She is a very agile predator, it can climb trees easily, grasping the trunk firmly, digging in its claws and bounding upwards with jerky movements like the marten. Interestingly the marten is one of the few predators agile enough to catch small mammals such as a squirrel and rabbit. Her potential story is that she is fed up with eating fish and so she wants to eat tastier. The reason I picked the giant river otter is because it’s the biggest specie of the Mustelidae, and although their diet is mainly fish, they can eat small mammals. Giving how slender and flexible she is, she has a potential to be the most physically expressive character through her body language, making her like a rubber hose character. The inspiration came from Tatyana from Animalympics and her name is the reference to the nursery rhyme, Pop Goes the Weasel.
That's all of it, I hope that you like it.
