Meet Percy and Ivan

Now that I've finished all of the Three Week Projects, I can start focusing on the main brief. We were given a choice between going with a "Myths & Legends" theme or a comedy theme, and I decided to go with comedy. I saw it as the perfect excuse to create an animation featuring some characters of mine, who are already fairly fleshed out and developed and have a lot of potential for amusing antics together.

Meet Percy and Ivan, who began life as humanoid robots based very, very loosely on Searchman, an already existing two-headed robot. They're going to be humans in my animation, though, to make the basic plot work.

The basic premise is that Percy (the hairy dude rocking the mullet) and Ivan (the short haired guy) are brothers who don't quite see eye-to-eye on most things, and unfortunately have to share a flat together. After only ever seeing his brother eat Cheetos (and wondering how he was still alive), Ivan decides to take matters into his own hands and teach him how to feed himself properly. He decides to start with something simple, something that not even Percy could mess up - cereal. Unfortunately, Percy has other plans.

Ivan is an intelligent, 26 year old man who means well, but can have a bit of a short temper and a low tolerance with certain things. He can come across as a bit uptight and snobby, but he does have a sweet side – it’s just he usually feels the need to be in-charge and responsible, and it tends to stress him out a bit.

He’s always wanted to be some sort of high-ranking military officer, but gave up on those dreams to take care of his younger brother instead after their mother died, trying to make him into a better member of society so that he doesn’t struggle so much in life.

Ivan is 6’2”, and while he isn’t as outwardly muscular as his brother is, Ivan actually has a lot more strength to him than his appearance would suggest.

Percy is a not-so-intelligent 24 year old man, who can act loud, rambunctious and overly cocky at times, but he really just wants attention and is like a large, hairy child in that respect. He can actually be pretty sensible and affectionate when he drops the false bravado.

That doesn’t mean he makes things easy for his brother, of course. With a crude and immature demeanour and sense of humour, he and his brother don’t quite get along at the best of times, but it’s clear that they do care about one another. They just don’t quite have the same outlook on things.

Despite being the younger sibling, Percy is also 6’2”, and is (somehow, despite his diet) much more muscular when it comes to his physique. It’s all for show, though – get him into an actual fight and he’s a complete pushover.