Tragedy at Fort Hood, TX

My condolences and best wishes to the fallen, wounded, and their families at the recent attack/shooting spree at Fort Hood, in Killeen, TX. Only this summer were my brother Jeff and I were invited there for Animix. Though it was hotter than heck there, the people I met made it one fun convention to be at.

May your grief and mourning be transformed into Justice.

Fallcon 2009

Last convention of the year is done for me, Fallcon in Minneapolis, MN. As usual, the promoters and staff treated us like Kings, did some sketching for them, and gabbed over wine and beer after a great steak dinner that they put on for all the guests and volunteers. Big hardy thanks to them for having us out for another year. Here are some sketches done for the con staff (2nd was actually my only full commission I had for the con)...

The weakened economy had some effect as I didn't have that many commissions to do (guess I might have to rollback prices. :P). But I was able to get some prelim sketches done for an upcoming project, more later if the client wants it known before it's done.

Fantastic Gene Ha and I traded sketches; I drew up one of his friend's RPG characters, and I got another Rogue for my collection. I mentioned to Gene that I like the short hair on Rogue and that for some reason, artists like to put her hood up, covering it. Well, looks like Gene threw in a little joke by having Rogue tauntingly playing with her hood. Good Job, Gene! :)

Since sketch commishs were slow, it opened up the possibilities to sketch some interesting things, this being a quicksketch for a guy who had a stack of Jack Kirby Monsters, and he would get other artists to do their rendition. I like drawing rocks, and have always been fascinated by Easter Island so The Stone Men (of Easter Island) was a natural for me. The girl was no extra charge. :P I also drew up a marker piece for the charity auction, Samurai Jack and Aku of course since it's what I'm currently working on. When I was coloring it I was noticing that something looked odd about Aku, then it dawned on me after a bit that I forgot his beard! Luckily, I wasn't far enough that I couldn't add it in. Back at home I noticed that I left the beard off of Aku again in the approved pages for the SJ story I'm working on. Those were also caught in time. :P

Bewbs!

A little something to put on a T-Shirt for some charity event a friend is helping out with. I assume it's for breast cancer.

Bump! I need more in mah Post Counts. :P

Have some Space Girl. :P

Yay! New Post! More Shameless Plugs!

Yeah, I dropped off the face of the Earth again, wasting more time and procrastinatingly working on an 8-Pager Samurai Jack story that's just waiting for Pencil Approvals now. I am finally on Facebook, but I'm not sure how to make a Fan account to keep my personal friends and friendly fans separate.

I did put up some pics from this year's San Diego Convention there, though I thought I took some better and more pics, but I guess that's all I have. Enjoy what you can. Hopefully you can see them and they're not blocked. :)

LaJolla, CA
San Diego Comic Con
Sketches from SDCC

On Shameless Plug front, A couple of World of Warcraft Trades came out; Book 2 Hardcover which compiles issues #8-14. Book 1 is now in a Softcover TP with a shiny new cover.

Also out is the Cartoon Network Action Pack #41 which has my Samurai Jack "Sanderella" 6-Pager. It was rather wordy with all the narration they had in there, but glad to see they worked it all in around my artwork. ;)

And now, have some more doodles of Lady Scorpia.

Animix 2009: Followup (Non-Gripey)

Alrighty, now that I have SDCC out of the way, time to catch up on some good thing out of Texas from Animix: Costumes! Gotta give ppl credit for sticking to their guns in the heat. Seems like a lot of the fans and con staff in Killeen, TX knew each other beforehand or from last year, so the whole convention feel was rather friendly. Enjoy the Cosplay pics!

But surely one of the weirdest juxtapositions I've seen at a con takes the prize! :)



Wrap up from SDCC next time. Or maybe something of a Travelogue...

AniMix 2009--All Melty! (sorry, griping post)

Well, I guess the pic above says it all for this little posting on AniMix. It was HOT! Yes, yes, Texas is hot, and I shouldn't be griping since I'm in an Air Conditioned hallway for our Artist Alley space. That would be true if the AA was AC'd. Supposedly, the AC crapped out on the convention again like it did last year for AniMix's first run. I think the hotel was just too cheap to turn on the AC in the pubic areas, meeting rooms, and hotel hallways, but the bathroom on the first floor was AC'd, go figure. :/

It didn't help matters that many artists, including myself, were positioned in front of huge windows with the sun beating down on their backs. Fortunately, the ConStaff with experience from last year stapled up some bedsheets to diffuse the magnifying effect of the glass. A giant fan was brought in to help, but that was usurped many a time by the Copic marker guy. It came down to getting a fan from the local Wal-Mart to provide a breeze, mind you, a hot breeze. :P I didn't have a thermometer, but I would have to say it was 90 or above in there. Nice and melty.

This is my complaint post ATM, since I'm in a grumpy mood, seeing as our flight out to Dallas was delayed, and we had to reposition ourselves to make it back to Chicago last night, we had to switch to United. Unfortunately our checked luggage didn't switch and is at the airport. They're supposed to be sending it out, but I'll have to keep on that to make sure they do. Gotta repack for the flight to SDCC tomorrow. :P But yes, this is the Griping Post. Some good did come of it, a good beer and steak Saturday night, some good company, found some figures I was looking for, and some nice looking ppl cosplaying. Thanks goes out to Keita for having us out, and hopefully it was a success enough that they can move to a better hotel for the next time.

BTW, the Yoko pic was done for their Auction, hopefully they'll be setting it up on eBay to sell some point in the future, so be generous. ;-)