Lil' Drac: The Re-Deadening

ERGH!!!  After several days experiencing a personal "story retreat", I've come to the unfortunate realization that, in order for this epic story to work, I need to make the audience hate the person that kills Dracula.  Lil' Drac would have to kill the man who killed his father, but his father killed a bunch of villagers that didn't really do anything to deserve it....so....looks like I'll be shelving my Lil' Drac resurrection story...for now, at least.

Grrr...look at all those wasted notes and story sketches!

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...

The Old Stuff - Portfolio Trading Cards

I was going through some of my old Portfolio stuff and came across the Trading Cards I created of my characters after I graduated from The Art Institute of Atlanta. I actually found some of my old card holder sheets (those 9-slotted plastic things that you could keep in a 3-ring binder), inserted each of these cards into a slot, and sent it off with my portfolios! I thought it was pretty creative...apparently not creative enough. In any case, here they are:

The Icon Drawings

Whenever I put together a new portfolio to send out, I collect all my stories and pick the cream of the crop. I then create "Icon Drawings" for these select stories and use these Icons for "branding" that story within my portfolio. I'll use these drawings on my website, in print, and wherever else I need them. Here's the original sketches for two of my recent Icon Drawings, Gill's Fishy Tale and Lil' Drac. Be sure to check out LoweQuality.com to view more of these characters, including full Animatics for each!