Cooper.

Cooper gets up at five when the town's still asleep, crosses the valley fog, and switches on the mic. He thinks a lot about the people listening to the radio just to not be in silence, and when he dedicates a song "to whoever's out there alone this morning," he's talking to someone real. As he puts it, he just wants whoever's up early not to eat breakfast on their own. A backpack for carrying your things carries, on its back, a koala who carries, every day, half the town's spirits.

I created him facing forward, against the flat background: on a backpack, the portrait reads well and holds up to daily wear. In his story, Cooper closes every morning with the same line, like someone saying see you later: "look after each other, because we're the ones who are left." Then he switches off the lights and goes to sleep off the morning. Carrying this koala on your back is carrying that mix of his — warmth and calm. If you like him, there's more about him in his biography, and he's part of an entire family of characters.