Forum:Infobox templates: how do I get started?

So I am trying to create a basic infobox template for my wikia. I've got the basic concept of templates figured out, but I am intimidated by the mountains of code I see on template pages. What I am trying to do is pretty simple: the wikia is about the stories my siblings and I made up about our stuffed animals when we were little. For each animal's page, I want to make an infobox with the animals name at the top, a photograph off the animal below it, and then a number of fields to fill in with the animal's age, job, marital status, species, etc.

I've read all the help pages on templates and infoboxes, but I still can't make it work. I've even tried copying other people's code, but for some reason the page always shows up blank. How do I start out if I want to do something like this?

http://kingdom.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_Wiki --Wuggs 02:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)