I remember looking at a big ‘Making-of’ Star Wars book and reading about the evolution of the characters. There was stuff like Chewbacca originally being a lizard-like creature, more obnoxious versions of Threepio, and the singular protagonist splintering off into Luke, Han, and Obi-Wan. That last example always stuck with me as a good way to avoid putting too much baggage onto one character, expand the character roster, and having the different personality traits make for varied interaction between characters. This came up for me a couple of times, but mainly with the character that would eventually become Owl and Lux.
Initially I was going to have Donovan meet this character on his way to arriving at Growtree. Originally named Volo, and later Vox, he was going to be stranded on a rock and picked up by Donovan. Volo/Vox had a lot going on: He was a fantastical creature, an immediate representation of the otherworldly mythology of the story’s setting. He was also a formidable ‘man-of-action’ type, and a troubled soul with a complicated past. Once I started outlining the story arc, I decided that, while this all took place in an extraordinary ‘other’ world, I didn’t want the extraordinary to be overly pronounced. I wanted those kind of moments to be varied, delayed, and, hopefully, more impactful as a result. But I also wanted Donovan to have a trusted companion, someone to interact with until he met more people on Growtree. That’s when I decided to make Vox a non-verbal dog, or dog-like animal, at least. I still wanted the character to possess abilities of some sort, to aid Donovan in his adventures. As I started to finalize the dogs look, and powers, I realized I didn’t like the name Vox too much. I liked the monosyllabic length of the name, and the dynamic ‘x’. I asked my friend, and roommate at the time, Gina, about my thoughts on it and she came up with the name Lux, after (I think) Kirsten Dunst’s character in the film Virgin Suicides. The name stuck right away, and Lux became an avatar of Growtree, the story and the island: a seemingly ordinary concept that would eventually prove to be something much more.
As I contemplated what Lux was going to be like, I drew a lot of inspiration from some of my favorite dog characters: Snowy (Tin Tin), Hosehead (Strange Brew), Nanook (The Lost Boys), Digby (Pushing Daisies), White Fang, Dynomutt. Lassie always stuck with me, both in personality and the sleek look of collies. Eventually, Lux became a collie/fox hybrid with the uncanny ability to communicate with their human companions, like most of the previous examples. And, like all those other dogs, I wanted Lux to possess special powers that would not just be cool looking but also lend a practical aid to Donovan. While watching The Sword in the Stone, specifically the scene where Merlin changes himself and Arthur into different kinds of animals. This gave me the idea of Lux changing into other animal types to interact with different environments. She could change into a dolphin-like animal to go underwater, or an insect to access some place small.
Even though I had a pretty good bead on Lux, I still wanted the other aspects of Volo/Vox, the more action/complicated past parts, to be represented. And that’s where Owl came in.