Haroun: Initial Character Designs

The character I have decided to focus on for my CS project is Mr. Butt, the Mail Coach Driver. At first glance, he is a largely unimportant character, simply transporting Haroun and Rashid to the Valley of K so that Rashid can tell his story. However, there is more to him than seen at first glance.

The most obvious addition to Mr. Butt's character is his appearance as the Hoopoe bird that Haroun and Iff fly around the moon on. Both use similar mannerisms - repeating the word 'but' at the start of a sentence, being excited by travelling fast and delivering his passengers to their location very quickly, and in general being very eccentric. 

In terms of allegory, Mr. Butt represents the power of using real-life people, places, and events to enrich stories, and, as one of the more obvious parallels between Rushdie's real and imaginary worlds, encourages readers to read into the metaphors and meanings of the story. In this way, Mr. Butt could be seen to be the very embodiment of representation, which the entire story is written around.

 For my design of Mr. Butt, I started by looking at different colour schemes, using a quick sketch to try them out. Additonally, I also tried out some different patterns as a highlight, and, with Megan's help, decided that orange should be a key theme, to tie him in more closely with the hoopoe bird, but to also include a  light base colour, to represent his light-hearted nature.

Whilst reading Haroun, I imagined him as quite a large man, in a slightly too-casual uniform for his job as a coach driver. Considering his jolly, friendly personality, its not surprising that I saw him as being quite round, a circle being the most friendly shape, suggesting an approachable, soft nature.

An important part of Mr. Butt's role in the story is his appearance as both Haroun's coach driver and also as the flying Hoopoe bird, who ferried  him around the moon on his journeys. If you were to interpret Haroun's adventure as a dream, then its no surprise that the role of helper would be filled by the boy's eccentric driver from the day before. Seeing as Mr. Butt appears in two forms in the story, I thought to emphasise the connection between the forms by having Mr. Butt wear a hat topped with orange, Hoopoe-like feathers.