Hey Hangry crew,
It's been a minute, as Hangry Andy has been away with the Rugby up in Scotland for some R&R.. we all need a defrag now and then, so now he's back, fuelled and ready for the next tranches of development. This week we’re diving deep into the art of character creation, sharing some insights from our ongoing R&D journey, and giving you a glimpse at what’s on the horizon for Hangry Animals.
The Evolution of Zebrina the Zebra
Character design is more than simply slapping on some zebra stripes and calling it a day, especially when you're building a character for animation, games and interactive storytelling.
Our beloved Zebrina the Zebra has undergone some serious changes recently, all in the name of style, function, and performance for her screen debut.
What’s Changed?
🧥 Clothing & Accessories – We’ve adjusted Zebrina’s outfit to feel more aligned with the Hangry Animals brand and her persona, ensuring her look is distinct and memorable.
Hair Design – Zebrina’s mane has been reworked to balance stylistic flair with practical rigging needs, making her easier to animate while enhancing her visual appeal. There will be a fur/hair generated version in the future, but for now, an easy riggable hair do.. will do.
👀 Facial Structure & Eyes – Let’s be honest… Zebrina’s previous model had a touch of the “cross-eyed conundrum.” We've restructured her face and adjusted her eyes to improve readability, emotion, and focus—essential for effective animation. The eyes are now a procedurally generated eye material we can adjust as we go. All the Hangrys will get the same eye makeover now, for that consistent style and toon like feel.. a la 'My Dad the Bounty Hunter' inspiration. (Look it up, it's a great show.)
Rigging – Bringing Zebrina to Life
Once a model is built, it’s time to rig—essentially building a digital skeleton that allows animators to pose and move the character.
We’ve got an IK (Inverse Kinematics) and FK (Forward Kinematics) features in our rig setup for Zebrina, giving animators intuitive controls for her limbs, facial expressions, and stretchy dynamic movement. This setup ensures Zebrina can perform everything from subtle eye twitches to wild, cartoonish antics with ease. We can then place these posed extremes in a Pose Library within Blender.
We’ll be sharing some behind-the-scenes breakdowns soon, showing how this setup brings our characters to life on our YouTube channel in the coming week.
R&D – Building a Better Gaming & Giving Experience
Our R&D project is now well underway, and our first major step has been assembling a Miro board packed with desk research, opportunities and obstacles as well as potential outcomes.
This includes insights into:
Gamer psychology – Understanding what drives engagement, progression, and reward systems.
❤️ Charitable giving habits – Exploring how we can create meaningful moments where players feel empowered to give without interrupting gameplay.
📊 Market trends & opportunities – Ensuring our platform is built to scale with the right incentives for both players and partner charities.
There will be more on these topics in our monthly guest newsletter write-ups from Ceri Angel, our COO and project lead on the R&D side of things, amongst every other awesome thing Ceri is doing for Hangry Animals right now. You don't want to miss her take on all things Hangry. After all, Ceri is one of the major influences of the Hangry Animals and the Hangry vibes overall.
Auto Battler nearing readiness
As some of you may or may not be aware, there are several games in various stages of development alongside our animated series teaser trailer and everything that surrounds it. We must be mad doing all this together? Rest assured the progress is iterative and suits our style to keep things interesting. It's been known that longer form projects have dips and lose interest for dev teams, hence having a few we can pivot to over time, is great for morale and excitement all round. The Auto Battler's mechanics and the ability to choose ERC1155 items to battle with is now complete, and we're fixing up each animation loop for the 2D versions of our Hangry Beasts (5 OG species from the collection) for holders to battle each other to climb the Hangry leaderboard.
We’ll share more details soon, but for now, know that Q2 of 2025 is shaping up to be huge for the Hangry Animals universe.
What’s Next?
A deeper dive into Watson the mechanoid’s animations and gameplay role.
Details on our upcoming survey—we’ll need your help to get as many responses as possible!
More updates on R&D insights and our evolving gameplay mechanics.
Thanks for being part of our journey. Stay engaged, stay involved, and as always—stay Hangry!
