Greb the Pleb
A short story written by me, I'm the sole creator. As is the case with pretty much every fiction writer, I took experiences and opinions from my own life. I didn't write this for any particular reason other than I just wanted to do it. As the first asset will tell you, it's about a thinking, feeling robot that has a passion for animation/cartoons, but his mechanical limitations make him incapable of drawing or painting.
I liked robots as a kid because of things like Transformers and Star Wars and I still think that character design wise robots are really versatile. I just think they're cool. I feel like a lot of younger writers try to makes their stuff vulgar or violent which is fine, but I wanted to see if I could write something with no vulgarity or violence. I suppose so anyone of any age range could read it but mostly just as a sort of challenge to myself, to make sure I don't use vulgarity or violence as a crutch.
These are some notes I took while coming up with Greb so I wouldn't forget anything. The first segment is a 'Story Circle' (or a list in this case). The Story Circle is a thing that Dan Harmon (writer and co-creator of Rick & Morty) does for everything he writes. He says that all stories follow specific steps. You can look up Story Circle to see what they are. I try follow it most of the time but not strictly, it's just a guideline. The second part is a list of names for characters in the short story. They're meant to be strange. Their names are literally what their wanted career is or something that represents that career. Because people's aspirations or purpose in life are kind of their labels, or at least in this world.
These are just some sketches of Greb. As you can see I'm not too good at drawing. I like having a visual representation. Character design gives you impressions of their personality just by looking at them. Visualizing Greb and his physical mannerisms helps me to better keep in mind what kind of character he is. I don't do this with every character I make up but I liked it with Greb. His design is kind of a fusion between Bender from Futurama and the Iron Giant.
