Dorobou

Dorobou = 泥 (doro - mud) + 坊 (bou - boy)
his name means "mud boy," and is identical in pronunciation to the word for "thief" (泥棒)

Can you guess what he is after I've explained his name? Here is a hint: he is a mud boy and a thief. More specifically, he is a boy who is a thief of mud. He steals mud. And is a boy.

He is not made of mud, even though he is very dirty and kind of grimy looking. I guess he lives in mud, though. Yes, he shall live in mud. I decree it. He comes out on rainy days and digs up the softened dirt around peoples' houses and packs it into a big ball of earth, then runs away with it. Nobody likes him except for maybe a couple of girls who think he is cute and do not understand the property damage he is causing.

What does he do with all this mud? I don't know. Maybe he is building a house. Maybe he is just a huge jerk.


"Dorobou" is not the first character I made based on a name. Originally the kid was going to be made of mud, but then I started to think it would be inconvenient to have him dripping all over the place, and trying to make his skin blobby and runny.

I am trying to make a more "painted" look with the vector art this time. It was kind of fun, and I liked it, but it's also kind of messy. I am satisfied for now, but I will probably have to think of some way to refine it next time. I am most pleased with the bucket.

The textured canvas look is just a bitmap I imported to Flash from Fireworks. It was basically stripes going one way using an additive blend. Then it was the same stripes but flipped horizontally the other way using a subtractive blend. The result is this grainy looking surface and the file being twice as large as it was before.

Made in Flash