Doggozord: Character Design

They're all named after foods

Let’s take a look at the characters this week!

As I stated before, I wanted a regular crew of five guard dogs and one little guy with a big heart. I refer to the guard dogs collectively as “The Pack” - the only one with a speaking role is the leader, a german shepherd named Walnut, and the rest are just meant to fill out the “traditional” roles from Voltron.

Rough headshots of The Pack submitted with the original pitch

And then there’s Biscuit, the main character. I made her a corgi, because they’re a popular breed and could loosely fall into a “therapy dog” category, or maybe I’d think of a funny way to incorporate herding the rest of the team around.

Biscuit's main characteristic is to be very excited about everything

But as I was drawing up the lineup a few weeks ago, I had a thought. You know who’s the nastiest guard dog of them all? Chihuahuas.

New Biscuit on the left, Old Biscuit on the right.

I’m not a chihuahua hater, per se, I could never hate a single dog EVER, but it is the breed I have the least attachment to. A friend of mine growing up had a nasty chihuahua who looked more like a rat than a dog and emitted an aura of vengeance toward anyone who wasn’t her mother. But I’ve met plenty of decent chihuahuas since then, it’s about time I gave them their due.

As for the rest of the pack, they remain largely unchanged. I did swap the boxer out for an American Bull Terrier, because that’s one of my favorite short hair breeds and I love their perfectly round heads. I don’t know why I didn’t think to use one in the first place.

I mentioned before I have a bit of a personality for each of them in mind. The Pack seems to be made up of hardened soldiers, but they’re all softies on the inside (except maybe Walnut). Meatball is the most protective and likes to make things, like baking cake or doing puzzles. Pickles is pretty smart and scientific. Flapjack is very shy and timid. Beans… has a chaotic energy. Absolutley a gremlin.

Another old board of the Pack.

I wish I had more time to flesh them out but six characters is so much for a three-four minute short. If I’d pitched this as my thesis in college I’d have been shamed out of it. (I did pitch a large cast thesis film in college. I was shamed. And it was just supposed to be talking heads!)

Next week I’ll dig deeper into Biscuit and Walnut!

I forgot to do this last week WHOOPS.

While I was in Texas a couple weeks ago I attended my childhood best friend’s baby shower. This is a painting I made for her nursery as part of her gift.

Posca pens on a slab of wood I found at Goodwill

She received a metric ton of disney princess clothes and blankets, as any Disney Adult would wish for, but I remember a time when we were growing up and she was deeply obsessed with horses. I want to make sure that Horse Girl energy lives on in her child.

As a bonus I did manage to get a video of Maya howling:

I love that dog.

Seeya next week!