#the noblins

Finally got the okay from Disney to share some stuff!

The Noblins were based off of the Mapuche & Chilote Peuchen myth which refers to feared magical creatures that can shape shift at will. In their mythos, from what I understand, they commonly take the form of giant flying snakes that paralyze their victims with their gaze and then suck their blood. Now, while it woulda been super cool to see Elena face off against those, we couldn’t do that for a number of reasons. So our version is a shape-shifter that can turn into a dog, has gale force lungs and can change matter to gold with their touch.

When I was designing these guys I really tried to design them as a people and not just as creatures, so I tried to really think about what their lifestyle would’ve been. As critters who live deep in the forest and are relatively unknown to most in Avalor it was clear that they shouldn’t look like they had frequent contact with modern Avalor, but at the same time they can speak Avaloran so it made sense that their species would have come into contact with people at some point in the past. So I tried to give them some ornamentations more closely resembling those of mesoamerican societies, almost as if their culture used to interact with the Maruvians and before the Avalorans and they just sort of ended up frozen in time once contact with them stopped. Since they can turn things to gold on a whim I tried to take advantage of that for not only their clothing, but also for body paint type motifs as well. For their markings and “body paint” I used some motifs that I’d found on Incan and Aztec pottery, jewelry and reliefs so as to further push that link between them and an Ancient culture. (I REALLY wanted them to feel like they’d been around for a long time! Not just like they’d shown up out of nowhere.) Another thing I wanted in the beginning was for their transormation to not be SUPER out of left field, so I played around with a lot of more dog-like designs at first.

Jiku was the first to be designed to determine their look and since we wanted him to very clearly be the leader of the noblins I tried to give him things that would sort of show his status in their tribe. Necklaces were an obvious choice since they would double as collars when they turned into dogs, but originally I’d also wanted him to have bangles, headdresses and maybe even a staff. Now, the problem with creating headcanons like that when you’re designing is that a lot of the time things you were trying to push just don’t work out, and so we ended up going in a different direction for Jiku and the Noblins in general. Something simpler. But hey, at least Jiku still got to keep his special bling!

As for what they look like as dogs I really tried to push the Dogo Argentino since they’re such fierce looking animals! But that one was a bit too scary. I tried out a few other breeds as well including the Venezuelan Sheepdog, Chihuahua and Peruvian Orchid but in the end the one I pushed for the final breed of dog was the Mexican Hairless dog- The Xoloitzcuintle. I really wanted them to turn into Xolos since, in Aztec society, Xolos were revered as magical and regarded with high value. The Xolos are also a more ancient breed, so it makes more sense from a time frame point of view. Furthermore Xolos come in regular, spotted and mohawked varieties, so choosing this breed not only allowed me to keep the spots on the Noblins without making up a new type of dog/Xolo, but also allowed me to give Jiku a little something extra that could be used to really easily distinguish him from the others even when transformed.

For the Noblin’s transformation effect I wanted it to almost look like it’s their magical golden power that allows them to transform into dogs. As the effect rises stylized Xolos (stylization was based off of a ceramic Xolo I saw at the LA MoNH) guide the liquid golden streams that envelope the transforming Noblin, then dissipate to reveal it in dog form.