… A lot.
This is just a fragment of the development gone into Yorkie, let alone Man In a Cat. On paper it doesn’t look like all the options were explored, but by God believe me we did! The seed of this whole story came from one picture, that one in the top left of him punching the inside the cat.
From there we had to work out what kind of story this was and how that was going to work best. That got really nauseating. I still think of all the possibilities and the knock on effects. Ian and I came up with so many scenarios, settings, relationships, arcs and loop-da-loops that we had twenty or so spin offs by the end.
After we had finally decided what was best for Yorkie’s future, I had to design him to fit with every aspect of the story perfectly. I don’t normally draw big round eyes, but apparently this is what this film called for. And scale! Don’t get me started! Even the shape of Yorkie’s skull is carefully considered.
This has been in development now for 3 YEARS, and I can finally say that I’m completely happy with it… I think… I do still like the idea that he’s Super Mario at, literally, the arse end of his career. I’ll try get some more bits and bobs of this kind up here, but the ideas phase was was so loose and wordy that it looks more like the random doodled conspiracy theories of Mel Gibson.