The Original 10 Pages
The origin of this story is a little silly. I had come to the conclusion that there was really a cartoon that encapsulated the feeling of winter, and so put that on the corkboard of my mind for later consideration. Then, I read the afore mentioned Netochka Nezvanova and completed the circuit. This is one of my first real passion projects, I loved so much about it and spent a lot of time working on sketches and exploring storylines. I finally dipped my toe into it in my senior year at SVA for my portfolio class with these ten pages. After this, I knew for a fact that this is a story I would see through.
Center for Cartoon Studies Thesis
Then next opportunity to work on Nikta was about a year and a half afterwards, as my thesis project for my graduate degree at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Not only did I expand the story further, I worked out a lot of the kinks that I hadn't been able to address. With the help of my advisor, the wonderful Steve Bissette, I was able to storyboard out 225 pages of the first leg of the story and make about 5 finished pages seen bellow. I'm taking time now to build my career a bit more, as pitching this story to agents has gone pretty slowly, but I hope that the day is not far off where I'll be able to share the whole thing with you.
Nikta
Very loosely derived from the unfinished Dostoevsky story Netochka Nezvanova, Nikta is the story of a young girl living in a remote village with her volatile father and distant mother. She spends most of her days exploring the surrounding forest, filled with spirits and creatures. One day, she is almost captured by a witch, but manages to free herself, along with the witch's other prisoner, a forest spirit with crows features she calls Crowboy. Learning that Crowboy is lost, she vows to help him find his way home. But when more witches keep cropping up, is there more to Crowboy and his mission?