Comic Con Season Has Begun!

I've been tabling at FanExpo since 2009, and honestly, I'm no expert at it. Every year is a learning experience for me, and I take lists of things that worked, what didn't work, and what I need to improve on. This year, I wanted to branch out and try out other conventions around Ontario and see which ones were worthwhile, and which ones were...less than stellar. Last weekend, I started my first show of the year at Anime North.

Now for the basic review...

If you're a hobbyist who likes to make cutesy Anime-ish stuff on the side, this convention may be for you. If you're an artist who's trying to get your foot in the door in the comics industry, AVOID ANIME NORTH...no...AVOID ANIME CONVENTIONS. Thankfully, I did not buy a full table, I was sharing with someone else, but I still learned this lesson the hard way. Not surprisingly, I didn't make any money, but I was hoping to make up for it for some possible networking opportunities. Long story short, Anime North was one of the worst places to make business contacts.

However, I did other things to the display that helped me out; making flyers was a good call, and the iPad was one of the best marketing tools I've used to date. The slide show of the webcomic pages was a hit. Was it worth the expense to discover this? As a freelancer/intern/assistant, I would say no. From a business point of view, was trying out this convention worth the expense? Again, I would say no. If you're getting mixed feedback from artists about certain comic cons, take that as a sign that you should not invest in getting a table.

To be fair though, profit wise, first conventions are usually mediocre at best...but there were too many strikes against AN. I barely made $20 at my first year at FanExpo, but I was able to sell my prints to strangers, and I made really good business contacts that eventually led to more work.  

One final note for Anime North - for participating in the artist alley, I was not impressed to be waiting in line for two hours to pick up a badge. Maybe separate the artist alley people from the con goers like other conventions do, or have designated registering times??? :-/

Hopefully Niagara Falls Comic Con is a much better one...coming up on June 9th.

Happy 2012! O_o

'Sup? A lot has happened over the past four months...most of it's been the colour flatting work.

For those of you who are wondering what that is, it's the first step in the colouring process, specifically for comic books, graphic novels, or illustrations. Basically, using Adobe Photoshop (I use CS4) I fill in all of the line work with flat colours underneath (see the example below from my comic).

Cadaverific!, page 132 panel 6

So since spring 2010, I've been doing this kind of assistant work for some of the artists at R.A.I.D. (Royal Academy of Illustration and Design) and Scott Chantler.

Then in December was The G33k Art Show. Somehow, my friend Miroki Tong planned and organized the show within three-four months, and it was a success. This past month I've been looking at other comic book conventions/events to go to this year, looking at new web hosting options, and planning the next issues for Cadaverific. Recently, a couple of people mentioned that I should look into getting a grant of some sort for the comic books, but I dunno, still on the fence about that... And the washing machine finally died....a somewhat dramatic death.... O_o

More art to come soon!....

KOI Music Festival 2011

KOI Music Fest came back for Round 2 last weekend.

This year I was smart and stayed for most of the day (the whole thing went from 1 PM til well into the morning) and I made a list of the different bands that I wanted to see. At the end of the day I saw eleven bands in total, and this girl was not disappointed.

Like last year, there was a main stage and about nine different venues around Downtown Kitchener, located at various bars, clubs, and cafes. This year though, the main stage was a bit bigger and located in the Crabby Joe's parking lot

I started out my day at Cafe Pyrus where Koetta Black played their set. Towards the end of their last song people were given a free copy of their CD and some stickers.

Koetta Black

I had some time to kill before the band Liferuiner played their set, so I wandered around downtown and ended up at the Main Stage. I saw the band Dancing With Paris all over the KOI facebook page before the festival - they won some contest and got to play on the main stage. This band was awesome live...I hope they come back again next year so that I can see the whole set.

Dancing With Paris

More Dancing With Paris...

Next was Liferuiner at the PSD (Peter Says Denim) Venue across the street. For some reason...I don't know why, but I thought the show would be something like the Christian Rock moshpit scene from Metalocalypse (minus the blood). Maybe I heard someone bash "Straight Edge" bands or something... Anywho, during their set, I totally got creamed at the EDGE of the moshpit.

Liferuiner

More Liferuiner...

I went back to the main stage, ran into some old friends (yay!) and watched bands Stray From the Path and The Real McKenzies.

Stray From the Path

The Real McKenzies - how about some Celtic Punk, eh?

Afterwards, my friend and I went to Capers Sports Bar and watched Blind the Carrier's set before heading out to The Wax to see Blind Witness. Both bands were so awesome...during Blind Witness' set, the place was packed.

Blind the Carrier

Blind Witness

We walked back to the second stage to see the band Hometown Beatdown, then went back across the street to see the last three bands play at the main stage - Dead and Divine, The Planet Smashers, and Protest the Hero. All of them were awesome (unfortunately I had to leave before Protest the Hero finished their set). It was like a big party that night in the parking lot downtown.

Dead and Divine

The Planet Smashers

Protest The Hero - I'm sorry that these photos suck!

...I look forward to Round 3 next year. ^_^

(More doodles coming!)

FanExpo 2011

After the con ended on Sunday evening...those messy, messy pros.

About three or four weeks ago, my friends and I were in the Artist's Alley again at FanExpo Canada. Unfortunately, I didn't even get to see everything at the convention during the four day event - the space was a lot bigger than last year. However, it was a lot better for the crowds of people that entered the building, and the event was a lot more organized than last year by far (last year there was a lockout on the Saturday, the fire marshal was called or something...2010 was not a fun year for the con go-er). Thumbs up for the improvements! :D 


In short, we all did very well, sold a lot of stuff, made contacts, the usual. I sold out of Issue #1 of Cadaverific and the Carnage prints, and got Issues #2 and #3 in the Silver Snail comic book shop in Toronto. There were also a couple of retailers from the US who were interested in getting the books into their comic book shops....we'll see where that goes.

Laura Vegys

Our Artist Alley neighbours were awesome, and IMO, one of the best rows for original and creative content (in other words, no thieves and/or scam artists!).  These people included Laura Vegys, Lamin Martin, Stephen Daymond (Specimen B28), Vitaly S. Alexius (Romantically Apocalyptic), Matthew Mohammed (Rorschach Press/Black Bastard), Lucky and Peter Trinh (Maddy McGee, P.I.), and the guys at Powie Studios. A couple of the most memorable highlights from the Arists' Alley was meeting Jeff Smith (creator of the Bone series) and Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Essex County).

The dudes at the Specimen B28 table.

Promotion for the webcomic Romatically Apocalyptic.

Of course, it can't be a comic con without the cosplayers! Here are some of them...

From Soul Eater

Penguin and Vein

Kakashi from Naruto

Freddy Kruger

Super Mario!

I have no idea...but that is awesome.

Chuthulu!

From The Watchmen

From Pokemon

And finally, the Star Wars Blue-Ray promotion was in full swing...

Until next year then!

Carnage Pinup

Alrighty, here is the end result from my mini rant about 3 (?) weeks ago... 

To get the pose, I took a few screen shots from a music video on YouTube (Suicide Silence - Disengage). I thought the vocalist, Mitch Lucker, was a perfect model for Carnage.

However, this is where I began to run into problems...Lucker of course is wearing a t-shirt, so it was difficult to map out where the ab muscles + trunk were in this position. Fortunately, Andrew Loomis (hopefully) saved this pinup.

Of course, after I finished penciling this, I find an old Spider-Man comic book that had MANY similar poses like the one above. The irony... -_-

I'm about to leave for Toronto shortly, and yes, I'm at the MTCC for the whole convention. My table is A55 - pretty much across from the Marvel booth. Come and see me! :)

Happy Wednesday...

Male Anatomy is So Weird....

I still have issues with drawing male anatomy. It doesn't matter if I use a reference - the figure almost never looks right after I pencil it.

For example...

...I guess the basic sketches look somewhat decent. At least I've got the pose that I want to use for my Carnage drawing (here I was deciding between two of them - the top left and the bottom right poses).

Then I add more of the muscles, and that is where I get thrown off my groove. I've shown my drawing mistakes before on this blog, but this is so embarrassing....

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

I think the bottom pose looks better, but the top one...at least from the chest up....looks more aggressive. However, there is a whole lot of (unintentional) codpiece action going on...I have no clue how that happened... Iiiiieeeeeyieyie... :-/

To be continued.... 

Cover Art

Here is the finished cover art - both books are now finished and ready to be picked up!

Issue #2

Issue #3

As I mentioned in my previous post, this year I got my comic books printed at Guerilla Printing. They're a great place for any artist who's looking for an alternative printing company to get their art/promotional stuff printed. They print anything from booklets, flyers, business cards, stickers and buttons, etc. and their turn around time is great. The books look good, and the staff were very helpful and friendly.