Cretaceous Survivor 5th anniversary

April 6 2013, strangely enough, I barely remember that day, if not for the archiving systems from Deviantart, I may not even know when the exact date was, and yet, it pretty much was one of the most important days in my life, not because anything happened, but because I did something, I uploaded the cover and the first two pages of Cretaceous Survivor.

It's weird to remember how things were back then, I was 17, I was still in highschool, I had dropped studying science that very year to go into the field of arts.
Honestly, I wasn't at a great place, I still had major problems with my grades, I didn't have much of a social life, at times it felt like I'd be trapped in there forever... But... I didn't really care that much about all that, because at the time my head was just wandering with an idea, and idea that I had been developing for quite a while.

I had a raptor character, it was a character I already had done some small things with, I made some short comics with it, I made one absurd christmas video, I even had some silly illustrations of it and even a Tumblr blog, but I wanted to go further, I had a whole planned out story for the raptor in my head, and I wanted to make it come true.

Now, truth be told, as passionate as I was for this idea, I wasn't really sure it'd come through, I had already begun projects in the past that ended up being scrapped due to pure lack of focus or lazyness, hell, just a few weeks before, I was working on a Sonic the Hedgehog comic that never made it past the first page. Still, I wanted to give it a try, I started working on it.

If you go to the first page, you'll actually find in the description that I was excited that I actually started making it, still, it wouldn't be too long, after 7 pages in fact, that it seemed like the curse had taken its toll again and I had dropped the comic... But then, after 4 months, something strange happened... I came back to it, inspired by another webcomic I had been reading, I came back to it, and this time... I didn't stop, before I knew it, it was December 31st and I finished it... The whole way.

Now, of course, you could say the idea that I finished it is questionable, it was meant to be the first chapter of plenty and I had ended it on a cliffhanger, thing I've already addressed that... I'm not going to continue due to my change in vision and direction. Still, it was the first time I had done something like this, it was the first time I had ever endured in such a big project and went the whole way.

Nowadays, my thoughts on the story are different, I feel the pacing is way too fast, the physics are way too incoherent, the art is abysmal, but even then... I still have a great appreciation for it, because it was Cretaceous Survivor that, for the first time, managed to give me that push I so desperately needed. Ever since, I managed to complete Destined Flames, a much bigger project, I've started learning animation, and I've also met ton of great people that have helped me improve.

As a celebration, I decided to do something to show how far I've gone, I went to page 45  , which was probably one of the greater pages, and remade it in animation.

This is probably the last time I'm drawing the raptor for awhile, I'm not sure about the future of the character, still, I've one thing for certain.

I'm not stopping now, and that, in a huge way, is thanks to Cretaceous Survivor.

Thanks for reading.

Go here if you'd like to read the comic: speedaction.deviantart.com/gal…