The Honey Badger burst into public consciousness thanks to a video that went viral. The video emphasised the fact that the Honey Badger is aggressive and doesn’t give a XXXX.
The Honey Badger is indeed a ferocious and fearless animal. However, it wasn’t until recently when watching a documentary that I realised that there is another side to the animal, and it is in fact a highly intelligent creature.
Stoffel scaling the wall with the aid of a shovel.
The documentary mainly featured a badger called Stofffel, a resident of the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in South Africa. Stoffel quickly became the centres most infamous resident due to his frequent escapes.
Stoffel manoevering a rake into position for another escape attempt.
Amongst his successful breakouts have included the following jail-break techniques:
Climbing a tree to get over the wall
Tunnelling under the wall
Using a forgotten tool to scale the wall
Piling dirt into balls to make a mound from which to scale the wall.
Undoing the latches on his enclosure door. This was particularly impressive as he recruited the help of a female badger, Hammie, that the keepers had introduced in the hope of distracting him from escape. Instead they teamed up and figured out how to open the door together.
Inspired by all these badger antics, I thought I would riff off them to come up with a new animal species. For a while now I’ve been creating a series I call ‘Lesser-Known....’, which has featured dog breeds, animals, birds etc. So time for a lesser known badger!
I initially imagined something vaguely resembling a cross between a badger and weasel. I thought the long and lithe groom of a weasel would suit a creature good at escaping from things.
I then started emphasising badger elements more. I like the idea of having very distinctive strips as it would reference the black and white striped prison uniforms that many prisoners used to wear. It was also at this point I came up with the name ‘jail-break badger’. The last one I drew in this set I really liked the look of, so I thought I would work on that particular pose a little more.
While I liked the look of multiple stripes, fewer stripes are definitely easier to draw and more badgery. Long curly tails are definitely not a feature of badgers, but I thought it was a fun look so I decided to keep it.
I also thought it would be good to change the name from ‘jail-break’ to ‘zoo-break’.
What’s Next?
From badgers to bulldogs…and weasels to warthogs….You name it - I can draw it!
There’s also a whole host of characters in my Cartoon Newsletter, along with cartooning tips. Add your name and best email address to the orange box below and I’ll wing a copy your way.