Deadly Darling — illustration & motion by Kaitlin Vander Wal

The Brute is a towering enforcer from my Samurai story concept, designed to embody overwhelming physical power and intimidation. His exaggerated proportions, massive shoulders, and compact stance create a silhouette that immediately communicates strength and brutality. Despite his size, the character’s personality comes through in his expressions and rough, almost crude facial features. The blunt haircut, heavy beard, and worn clothing suggest a life shaped by violence and survival rather than refinement. This design explores contrast between heroic samurai archetypes and the raw, intimidating presence of a battlefield brute. The sheet includes turnarounds, expression studies, and action poses to establish how the character moves, fights, and emotes within the story’s world.

A surreal desert environment illustration featuring bold red rock formations, purple mountains, and a winding path for depth and visual flow. Hand-drawn line work, textured shading, and subtle skeletal elements create atmosphere and environmental storytelling. Focused on color contrast, composition, and digital landscape design.

A short-form animated clip created entirely in Adobe After Effects, showcasing original motion design and visual storytelling. This piece highlights dynamic animation techniques, smooth transitions, and expressive timing to engage viewers in a concise format.

A fast-paced festival campaign for the Kamloops Film Society—posters, motion graphics, social content, stickers, and a custom illustrated mascot named Gaffer.

Logo animation for a fictional brand, Paper Crane Productions. The logo was designed in Adobe Illustrator and animated in After Effects, using rotoscoped footage of a real origami crane as motion reference to achieve natural floating movement. This project combines illustration, frame-by-frame rotoscoping, and compositing to blend handcrafted aesthetics with digital animation.

A high-contrast digital illustration created in Procreate featuring a snarling coyote silhouette against a bold red background. The piece focuses on expressive line work, exaggerated anatomy, and strong negative space to convey aggression and raw energy. Emphasis was placed on shape language, minimal color use, and graphic impact for a striking, poster-style aesthetic.

A surreal reinterpretation of the unicorn myth, blending playful absurdity with darker undertones. Loose sketch lines, exaggerated motion, and limited accent colors contrast against a stark black background to emphasize form and attitude. The piece explores the tension between whimsical fantasy and chaotic expression.

Original character design, Tibbon and Rynn. D&D style characters ready for adventures, good food and treasure hunting.

A dreamy animated logo sting for an enamel pin brand—logo by the client, animation by me.

Deadly Darling is my personal creative label — a space where sharp aesthetics, narrative-driven design, and a slightly dangerous sense of charm all collide. I use this name across my animation, illustration, and design work to mark projects with a distinctive, mood-rich visual voice.

Custom mascot pose set created for the Wetaskiwin Hospital Foundation, designed for reuse across posters, web graphics, and event promos.

High-volume print, digital, and animated ad design for Kamloops This Week, including real estate ads, logo rebuilds, web animations, and a podcast logo sting.

Running a business is demanding, and building a website shouldn’t add more stress. Traditional web design projects can stretch out for weeks, often becoming a time-draining and costly process.

A custom animated logo intro designed and built in Adobe After Effects for The Cozy Cut, intended for use on Twitch streams and podcast videos. The piece features dynamic motion graphics that bring the brand identity to life through carefully timed transitions and visual emphasis, demonstrating effective use of motion design principles to create a memorable and polished intro