It's summer time, so you know what that means! Wizard has come to town! The convention ran from June 11th to the 13th, and on the final day, I got my very own booth in Artist's Alley! It was my first time selling at a venue this large! Very exciting!
Photo by Achuff Photography and Video
It was much more successful than the previous shows I've been at and gave me a better sense of how to price items. I've also made great strides in how to display my work, which is largely due to the help of the fellas at Rough Sketch. I'm lookin' at you Steve. You're a lifesaver.
For the first two days, I worked as a "booth-babe" for Stormwatch Comics. For those of you who are uninitiated (AKA Comic Civilians) in the ways of the comic-con, being a "booth-babe" usually means dressing up in a costume and chatting up pedestrians to try to get them to buy things. And in exchange, the owners of the booth you're herding nerds toward will make sure that you don't need to pay for anything for the rest of the day. They'll provide food and cover your admission. All you need to do is be friendly and make yourself useful whenever there's boxes to be lifted or money changing hands. Needless to say, it's a pretty sweet gig and a wonderful way to experience a convention. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
"Booth-babe"ing is just something I do for kicks, but several of the business contacts I made at the convention were people who initially struck up conversations with me because of what I was doing. It's much easier to talk to someone wearing a silly costume than someone sitting behind a table, obviously waiting for you to buy something.
I even got to see a friend of mine, a fellow artist, who goes by the alias Split Stitch. She's a seamstress and it shows. She showed up in a costume (Tira from Soulcalibur 3) that was absolutely INCREDIBLE! I was overjoyed to hear that she'd won the costume contest that day, because she definately deserved it!
Here's a few more pictures of convention silliness, including the
difficulties of being a superheroine without the proper training:
