There is not much you can do to prepare yourself to work with your childhood idols. I was (am) a cartoon fiend, and racing home to watch He-Man and She-Ra was easily the best part of a school day. As an adult, getting to work with the Mattel team to create chibi versions of these classic character was amazing. They really let us go to town with the designs, textures, personalities, and it was a blast.
When creating our own stories in the world of MotU, it was really important to us to draw reference from the series (old and new) while staying faithful to the lore that was established in the mini-comic. We wanted something that was 100% He-Man, but was still kid-friendly. I think we did a fantastic job of bringing the Masters to the Cryptoyverse (and the fans agreed).
There is one thing better than working with amazing IP that is known across the globe, and that is creating your own IP. OnChain's Zoo-F-O Escape characters is a lot of fun. Plucky heroes that got sucked out of a video game and left to fend for themselves in a new digital world. It was a crazy good time working with the incredible Cassie Soliday to create a whole new Cryptoyverse, unlike anything the world had seen.
You can't really talk about Cryptoys without mentioning Dr.FUD. The beloved bad bear of the Cryptoyverse. I have some rules for writing "final boss" level villains: 1. they need to be % smarter than the heroes 2. they need achievable goals 3. there needs to be a sense of betrayal. In our target age group, they don't have a ton of life experience, but they know when they've been lied to, and they don't like it. 4. You want to write a winning enemy, know your audience.
