A cartoon picture of David writing, and sweating. A large book next to him reads, "nakedfella.com. Comics and writing by best-selling cartoonist and public intellectual David Blumenstein"
Menu
  • About David
  • Comics
  • Squishface Studio
  • Experience Illustration
  • Media
  • Shop
  • Contact
Menu

What is The Precinct? — part one: character design development

Posted on December 9, 2006December 9, 2006 by David

The Precinct came from a fairly stupid idea I had about making a live-action cop series that was supposed to be from Europe and “dubbed” into English. It would be unclear as to whether the cops were actually cops or just weird guys who liked dressing like them and running down alleyways. And they would all share the first name “Ben”.

At some point I decided I’d try to make it an animated series idea. Now it was about a bunch of local (Aussie) cops in a specialised unit called The Precinct. Having watched and enjoyed many types of crime drama, from good (The Shield) to cheesy (Action Jackson) to low-budget idiocy (Crime Lords), I felt qualified to make potentially THE GREATEST COP SHOW EVER, one with all the yelling, suspensions, coffee mugs and et cetera one requires, but crammed into a tiny little (3-5 mins) program. Kind of like the Roger Ramjet of cop shows.

I first designed the characters in a “humanoid” style:

Precinct

… but it wasn’t long before I changed this, almost certainly for the better.

A different idea I’d been thinking about was a children’s series about a pair of government agents forced to team up when their divisions are merged — so, yes, a wacky buddy action comedy. When I started writing a script it quickly became clear that this was not an idea for a children’s TV network, involving, as it did, a fat, wheezing map of the USA lumbering down a filthy alleyway and tripping over its own feet in imitation of a perceived lack of focus and vision on the part of its intelligence community.

But I’d tried to come up with character design that would look “cute” so it would be palatable to children’s programming types. I made all the characters look like little boxes, or cylinders. Then I realised that The Precinct would be funnier if its dangerous, brooding cop cliche characters looked like little toilet-roll people. So I nicked the design.

Ackersley original pitch design

Noooooooo!

Having spent a year drawing and redrawing the characters, they’ve changed a bit (and my drawing has gotten better, hopefully). In the case of the character Ackersley (The Precinct’s roughest, toughest most on-the-edge-and-in-your-face officer), his hair’s gotten pointier and he’s shed his standard shirt and tie for a more rebellious police issue t-shirt.

Ackerlsey profile run

F-schlits!

Ackersley is dangerous

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.nakedfella.com/animation/theprecinct/ackersley2.swf” width=”360″ height=”280″/]

Tags:
Category: AnimationDesignDevelopmentThe Precinct

2 thoughts on “What is The Precinct? — part one: character design development”

  1. jasonb says:
    December 15, 2006 at 7:24 pm

    But he’s just so cute!

    I want to hug him, and squeeze him and call him “George”.

    Seriously. I’m loving this. I still remember back to the days at the Melbourne Bar and Bistro, pawing through the tomes that made up your sketchbooks. I recall stopping at THE PRECINCT and going, “wtf?!!”

    Great to see it all coming to life!

  2. david says:
    December 15, 2006 at 11:54 pm

    The days at the Melbourne Bar & Bistro (“Melbourne’s Cumhole!”) surely weren’t that long ago…

    But cheers, Jase. I’m enjoying it too. And good timing on your part, given my next post!

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent posts

  • “I’ll sell this to your wife!”
  • Squishbook receives commendation from the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
  • What Is Service Design (Chapter 0)
  • #acic: Australian cartooning industry controversy
  • Jews Are Feeling Unsafe
  • Cartoonist Cooperative ‘Buy an E-Sim for Gaza’ Donation Drive
  • Squishbook is released!
  • Jewish, Australian, creative
  • “Our agency”
  • Octane Render open for preorder now!

David Blumenstein

I’m a service designer, cartoonist and co-founder of Squishface Studio. I’ve done comics for The Guardian, Crikey and Australian MAD. Currently also deputy president of the Australian Cartoonists Association.

I usually write about things that shit me off, from bad bosses (The Bret Braddock Adventures) to pick-up artists (#takedown) to white supremacist trolls (The Internet’s Most Trolled Cartoonist) to predatory cults (Why Los Angeles is Scientology’s perfect city) and nasty tech bros (Octane Render: Cartoonists talk about A.I. art).

I’m working on graphic novels called Sciensatics (about cultists) and Free Money, Please (about wealth and passive income).

Sarah Howell

I regularly collaborate with my wife, Sarah Howell.

Tweets by nakedfella
©2025 David Blumenstein