While attending Ringling College of Art and Design, we took a traditional animation class as part of our studies. We all had to design a character based on the animal we drew from a hat.  I got alligator! Someone wanted to trade me for a chicken.

Making tons of drawings, nothing worked well until out of frustration I gave him a mohawk.  Then, Tyler the Gator was born.

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Living in Florida I did have some interesting experiences with gators. I raced RC boats in a retention pond around my aunt's subdivision, and the pond's resident gator was swimming by. I was scared. My dad grabbed the remote and  gunned towards its head. I for sure thought the gator would try to destroy it. But instead, he acted scared and retreated back in the water.
 

The American Alligator has roamed the Earth for 165,000,000 years. They survived the dinosaurs and lived among them. And they rarely eat, preferring instead to sunbathe and conserve energy. But people don't often see that side. They see the teeth, the sensationalism of their attacks, and peg them as monster creatures.  They are widely misunderstood.

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Over the years I've made many different characters and drawings. While I don't have many physical drawings of Tyler, his character stuck with me the most. I really identified with him: a fun guy at heart who's often misunderstood. While it was never my intention, he has become something of a "fursona" to me.

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For the oddballs, the joyous, the gifted, the creative, the misunderstood, and the outcasts,  Tyler is all yours.