Lil' Drac: The Resurrection

Since I'm not taking summer classes at the Academy of Art this year, I figured I'd better find my own project to work on to keep my skills sharp.  I've been debating a lot of different ideas.  I have several story ideas I want to flesh out, storyboard, and create an animatic for.  But then I figured I'll be doing a lot of that for my Thesis Project during the next year or so.  And so I started looking back over what else I've got up my sleeve. As a kid, I had created my own comic series with my friend and even wanted to be a comic artist before getting into animation, but I haven't given it much thought since.  Then, I was watching this great interview over at CTN Animation Expo about the importance of story at Pixar.  All four of these Pixar story artists also do comic books!  That's when I had my epiphany to do my own comic book, which I think will be a nice addition to my portfolio when I graduate.  But a comic about what?  Well, that's when I decided to finally revisit my undergraduate masterpiece: Lil' Drac!  I figure, if it won me the Best of Show Portfolio Award, it must be fairly descent, at least.  After I had created the animatic for class, I had continued to fiddle around with the characters and the world, expanding and refining it.  I had even written a second script to use for another animatic, but I never ended up producing it--too many story changes from the original at that point.  I feel like now's the perfect time to finally redefine my creation and adapt him for the comic book/graphic novel world!  Working heavily on story, at the moment, but here are some of the sketches I've been doing as I re-imagine the world of Lil' Drac...