Otnip is essentially our devil. I won't give away all the story points, but he's involved in all aspects of the plot.

Because the show takes place in the center of the earth one of the design "rules" I tried to follow was to make sure all props, characters and locations are organic in some way. Not a lot of tech or metal. So Otnip is made of moss and lichens.

I came up with the primitive looking sketch of him first. It's a image of Otnip that the Molemen carved in a rock. Then we designed the make-up around that.

BONUS FACT: Otnip's eyebrow is actually Moleman Bertrams moustache upside down. We're cheap that way.

The doc is based on characters I've been drawing for years. A stumpy body and short little legs. He's also influenced by character designs from Japanese Hero shows. (Barom One, Spectreman, Inazuman).

I knew this character was going to be a big walk-around suit, so while designing I was trying to envision how an actor would actually be able to see and work the hands and mouth in the suit. Turns out I should have thought more about it.

The actor couldnt see anything, and could only work the mouth or the hands. Not both at the same time. Oh well. He's probably one of my fave characters in the show. Please don't call him a raisin though. He HATES that.

This is an example of working backwards. We decided that we would use some kind of toy to make these guys, so I sketched them with that in mind.

Obviously influenced by HR Puf-n-Stuf characters as well as the anthropomorphized visualizations of a nameless fast food chains potato based side order. Which in themselves are "influenced" by HR Puf-n-Stuf.

I sketched the Worm Beast while we were writing that episode. I did a bunch of creepy Freudian nightmare sketches, and this design was the least unsettling to everyone. Half Lamprey, half Tapeworm.

It is designed to be a full "Bunraku" puppet. That means that it would have to be puppetered from a hole behind the head, so thats why the heads so large.

At the last minute we decided to put a British Judge/Barrister wig on her to really sell the idea that she's a judge. Why not?

He's the Moleman shaman. He needed to look monk-like and earthy. He had a fair amount of acting in his scenes, so we need to make the costume actor-friendly as far as motion and visibility. (See Blob Doctor ...)

The reference here was Druid. Creepy Druid.

After Halloween while we were still in pre-production, I bought a bunch of-super cheap costumes. One of them was a fabric Banana suit.

When we wrote the episode containing the Mitocites I immediately knew I wanted to figure out how to use that banana suit for them.

The sketch came together pretty quickly, but making this costume took forever. It has about 20 layers of latex and foam rock pieces on it. Thank god for talented interns on this one.

The giant eyeballs didnt work, so we recycled some Moleman eyes. In the end he came out looking more like an insect than I imagined, but that was a nice suprise. He's probably the most Kaiju looking of all out characters.