Welcome to Badlands, a presentation about character designs for an animated film set in
a 1920s, steampunk Mexico. Within the following presentation, I will be discussing my journey
through the Spring Semester of my work with creating and developing the eight different
characters, or groups in the case of the robots, debt collectors, and Ghosts, and the relevance and
importance this topic has for me, as a Hispanic man. The cultural aspect of this project is very
important because it gives me a chance to discover and connect with my hispanic heritage in a
personal, yet interesting way.

Within the story of Badlands, the protagonists, the three Hernandez brothers, Yolotli,
Ignacio, and Luis, live in3 an alternate reality of 1920s Mexico where steam technology has
advanced well beyond what the world has expected. “Humanos mecánicos” or Robots, now roam
the world as workers and are treated as property to the middle and wealthy class, despite their
dark origins of using ghosts, or spirits, to fully power them. “La Revolución Espíritu” works in
the shadows to combat this, and return the spirits back to their rightful place in the afterlife. It is
in this world that we find our protagonists. Luis, the eldest brother, while off galavanting on his
own adventures in theater and performance, accumulated a significant amount of debt and no
way to pay his dues. With debt collectors now after him, he turns to his two estranged brothers,
Ignacio, the second oldest, and Yolotli, the youngest brother, for help. The three brothers are then
sent on a journey of peril, reconciliation, redemption, and grief as they work to survive and
discover their own connections to the ghosts of the city to those that reside within.