Meet The Human! (Patreon)

Here's a frame from the shot I'm animating at the moment, which introduces a new character. Everybody, meet "Human"! That may not be his real name, but it's what I'm calling him for now because he's the only human character in the film (I think).
I'm not actually sure how much of a role he'll play in the end, that remains to be seen- I did have a storyline in my head a while ago where he was really central, but I think I'll be taking the film in another direction.
STILL, Human is a character that has been haunting the corners of my sketchbooks for a while now (as you can see in these bonus doodles). I'm not sure when he first showed up, but his design kept reappearing, and I decided at some point that he was going to have a role in this project.
Generally that's not how I make my films- I usually design characters explicitly for the story I want. But this project has a few impending characters like this, where they started out as unrelated ideas but ended up walking into the middle of the film and insisting I just plan around them.
It's satisfying to see this guy graduate from sketchbook to screen, and for all of the tedium and overthinking that comes with animation, I hope he brings some of that sketchbook energy and immediacy with him.