Blizzard The Polar Bear. What comes to your mind when you hear this name? A brave, strong warrior? A commander of ice and snow? No one would expect this name to belong to a meek, anxiety-riddled miner with barely a handle on his unstable ice powers. Living up to others expectations hasn’t been easy for this young bear. Everyone seems to have a perception of him that he needs to fulfil. But Blizzard knows, he can never be that amazing master of frost or glorious fighter and protector. No, Blizzard is a timid miner who spends most of his time in the ice caves, chipping away at minerals and looking over his shoulder for monsters. The moment a chunk of ice drops or an overfilled cart collapses, blue ice blasts through the surroundings, freezing everything around the frightened bear. No one really knows what made Blizzard so incapable, so pathetic, when he had a world of opportunity at his fingertips the moment he summoned his first icicle. But maybe, he’s comfortable where he is, cowering in a cold cavern underneath the ground, mining away his youth like the fear that eats at his mind.

Blizzard is a character I created in my upper Primary School years. He was originally conceived as an original fan character for the Five Nights At Freddy’s game series, a hulking polar bear animatronic with a concerned personality. Declining interest in the game series, however, made me revamp his character to remove connections to the game.

Blizzard became an online persona i used in video games or online chats, making his personality align much closer with myself. This made the characterisation of being a concerned person tie into my personal anxieties and insecurities. The idea of an animal as large and fearsome as a polar bear being an anxiety-riddled nervous wreck was intriguing to me.

When I created my official online persona, Ectobear, I forgot about Blizzard for a while. This was until I created Major the rabbit, when I decided to bring Blizzard back as a partner or friend. However, given that I had previously used him a an online persona, I found myself still identifying with his characteristics. This sparked the idea for the concept of the EctoPunks, small creatures representing different facets of Ectobear’s personality. From there, I reworked Blizzard and Major’s designs to use similar body proportions.

Now, Blizzard represent’s Ectobear’s anxiety, stuttering and shaking, freezing up in the face of unexpected tribulation, and struggling with the self-doubt that permeates his every thought.