When Designing the World of ‘Nimona’ Character Came First
variety.comBen Croll Long before celebrating the world premiere of “Nimona” at a hilltop castle high above Annecy, ND Stevenson devised the character out of sheer necessity. “I was an extremely depressed art student, I was 19 years old, and I was struggling,” he tells Variety. “I was really trying to find myself and figure out who I was, and Nimona was this character who kind of embodied everything I wanted to be.
She was a shapeshifter, able to change her appearance with the click of a finger, and she could be anything, any person, as big as a dragon or as small as a cat.
There was really no limit to her power, and that gave me an emotional language to talk about my feelings at a time when I really needed to.” What’s more, Nimona could travel, starting on the back of sketchbook and then to a serialized web-comic and then into publishing before charging towards a Hollywood studio gate.
And as his own animation career took off, Stevenson felt ready to entrust his character to other hands – but he had certain key stipulations. “Keeping her design was really important,” Stevenson explains. “She’s a curvy character who’s not sexualized.
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