Description:

Golden Trigger is a concept for an animated TV show about space cowboys and found family. It is a fun and exciting story with dynamic gunslingin’ action, intriguing and diverse characters, and intimate emotional moments. It aims to show how positive diversity within character design can enhance a story and a potential audience's connections with its characters. The focus of this project is on the show's characters and how they can be further engaged within the form of a character design zine.

The story follows protagonist Leone “Lucifer” Sharps and his hunt for revenge against Acheron, the man who tormented and murdered his family. Unbeknownst to Leone, the man he seeks to destroy is none other than his very own father.
Along his journey, Leone gathers a ragtag family who eventually help him open his heart and strengthen his soul to finally confront Acheron.
The foundation of this zine is formed from my research into diversity and representation in media, character bonding, and fandom culture. These topics helped me understand the connections between characters and an audience, how crucial positive representation is, and how fandom culture can spark from this. Representation, especially in entertainment, is extremely important because it can break down barriers, open people up to new ideas, be a source of inspiration and create powerful role models for audiences.

Zines have deep roots in fandom culture. Historically, they have represented a way of documenting and giving a voice to silenced communities. Zines today have evolved while still holding onto the core values of the historical zine in self-production, community and self-expression.

Zines have always possessed various intentions for being made, such as storytelling, niche interests, identity expression, or sharing artwork instead of earning a profit. Presenting a character design zine in this easily accessible and affordable way enhances the reach the characters have to inspire and connect with people.

While designing these characters, I looked towards strange, colourful, loud fashion and classic cowboy influences such as the original Mexican cowboy, the vaquero. The space I am designing in is influenced by the setting of the Wild West, which often includes harmful stereotyping, and so with my characters, I wanted to reform that to show that it is possible to explore narrative ideas while being sensitive to the cultural history included in those settings

I believe that considerate and diverse design results in more engagement from wider audiences and fan communities, leading to an overall more inclusive and positive culture surrounding characters and their worlds and the worlds and characters fans create because of that. Learning about zines and creating one that includes these values has given me the format for expressing these fun designs in a way that many people can easily access and connect to.