Post Show Recap: Wizard World Philly

I have my post show recap for X-Con ready to go, but I'm still waiting on some photographs 

before I can publish it... So, while we're waiting for that- Here's what happened in Philly!

I had less than a week after X-Con (just enough time to complete that Luna commission and catch a nasty head cold) to get my stuff together for Wizard World. It was the first time I've ever had an Artist's Alley table all to myself and it ended up being the most financially successful con I've ever attended!

I had a great spot in Artist's Alley, right across from Red Stylo Media and down the aisle from my friends Ken Haeser (of Living Corpse fame) and Mike Capprotti (cover artist extraordinaire).

Rough Sketch Studios was there in force as well, with Steve, Brielle, and Andy all taking up residence just one aisle away.




Directly across from my table was a talented young artist I've never seen before. Her name is Sasha Yosselani and her work is incredible. Take a moment to check out her website, you'll be glad you did.

I also had the pleasure of running into Alex Saviuk!
I'd been looking forward to showing him my work ever since meeting him in Chicago, but I wasn't expecting to see him in Philly! He did me the honor of looking through my portfolio and was a joy to chat with. I'm looking forward to the next time we cross paths.

I was assisted by my own personal booth babe, Thomas Mitchell. He spent the weekend dressed as Doctor Strange and was, dare I say it, the belle of the ball. If Tom hadn't taken time off from work to help me run the booth, there's no way I would've made it through the weekend. He is the best show partner anyone could ask for, and I suspect he likes to rave about my artwork even more than I do.

Having Tom nearby to take care of customers also freed me up to work on more show sketches than I would've otherwise been able to do. Almost a third of my income from Wizard World this year came from show sketches. I've never done so many at a single event... They haven't gotten easier or quicker, but they have gotten a little bit better.

<-- The first was Black Widow for a
customer who liked Marvel redheads.

The guy who gave
me a tiny zebra print
sketch book in Chicago
made an appearance!
His name is Chris
apparently and he was the recipient of this
(somewhat mannish)
Wonder Woman.

                                                                                                                                                                             Emma Frost as The White Queen of The Hellfire Club, complete with condescending bitch face.

This Octopus Mermaid is my personal favorite from the show! I LOVE how she turned out! I'm planning on coloring her sometime in the future. It's fortuitous that this sketch turned out so awesome, since the customer is planning on getting this tattooed on his body!

And last, but not least, is this drawing of Wonder Woman having a tea party with X-23.
I get the feeling it's some kind of inside joke between the customer and a friend, but she was absolutely delighted when she saw the finished piece and announced that I'd "made at least two people very happy"

Those four days sapped a LOT of energy out of me... I definitely learned how exhausting it is to work a convention when you're sick. I returned home on Monday with a bone-deep weariness that I have yet to fully recover from and had to keep on truckin' since the RAW cosplay fashion show was only a few days away... I'll blog about that eventually when they post the photos/video.

Now, if you guys don't mind, I'm going to go collapse in a corner for a few days.

Pittsburgh Comic Con - 2011

I just got back from the Pittsburgh Comic-Con and I am exhausted.

I made a few new friends, as well as a number of potential business contacts!

Instead of purchasing a table in Artist's Alley to sell prints and whatnot, I focused on showing my portfolio to publishing houses in hopes of drumming up some real business. I plan on doing the same at a bunch of east coast conventions: Wizard World Philly, Baltimore Comic-Con, Wizard World Chicago, and Wizard World Boston. Pittsburgh doesn't draw any of the major labels, so I had considered it more of a trial run than anything else, but it was far more fruitful than I had expected!

I got to talk to representatives from Moonstone and Big Dog Ink, both of which were exceptionally friendly and helpful. I also got to show my portfolio to several small press labels like Post Mortem Press, Diamondgoat Media, Fortress Publishing, and Boomtown Press.

And (because no convention is complete without a bit of cosplay) after I'd shown my portfolio to everyone, I was able to switch from professional mode to Stormwatch Comics booth babe. I'd been working on a Black Widow costume just for the occasion, and I must say, I am extremely pleased with how it turned out!

I spent some time walking the floor with the wonderful Amber Love.

(shown below, hugging comic art veteran George Pérez)

photo by Scott Allen Stafford

Amber is a comic book goddess with quite a sizable... following.

She's a journalist, an avid blogger, a model, a cosplay diva, and soon to be a published comic book author! She's a busy girl, that's for sure, so it's unsurprising that making the rounds with her takes quite a while. We ended up stopping at almost every single booth, since she knows everybody there. In all seriousness, she was on a first name basis with 50% of the people in that building, which is extra astonishing to me on a personal level, because I am so terrible at remembering people's names.

Through Amber I was able to meet Paul D. Storrie, a prolific comic book author who is just as much fun to talk to in person as he is to read. He was delightfully witty, which is something I don't often come across in real life. Clever yes, sarcastic sure, but witty requires a balance between a quick mind, sharp tongue, and dark sense of humor that is only pulled off by characters in scripted TV shows. Hanging out with him and Sean McKeever (another writer) was definitely one of the high points of the show.

I also met Lauren, an absolute darling of a girl, who was working one of the other booths. We became friends almost instantly and spent most of the show hanging out with each other. The great thing about conventions is that it brings together people who would never meet otherwise, but the tragedy of it is that I end up making friends with wonderful people (like Lauren) who live incredibly far away from me.

Thank god for the internet.

As always, Ken Haeser of Living Corspe was set up in Artist's Alley, drawing his heart out. I got to share a meal with him, his wonderful wife Tabi, and the rest of the Stormwatch crew several times throughout the weekend. The Haesers are some of my favorite people, so it was wonderful to get to spend time with them.

I got to see some really spectacular costumes, including an extremely elaborate Robo-Cop suit that the person had made themselves (complete with a lady scientist who guided him around since it was obvious that he could barely see through that visor). There was also a really impressive Jareth the goblin king from Labyrinth walking around and a guy (Alexander Rae, according to the internet) who pulled off the best Superman/Clark Kent look I've EVER seen!

I entered my first costume contest ever on Sunday. I was harboring no delusions about winning, since there are people who show up at conventions for no other reason than to exhibit the costumes they've been working on all year. The winner of the children's category was a 2 or 3 year old girl dressed as Ms. Marvel who was too cute for words. When she won, the trophy they gave her was almost as big as she was. Robocop won for the Adult TV/Movie category, a team of steampunks won Group and the adult winner overall was a 10-foot Chewbacca costume that was movie set quality and 100% handmade.

At the end of the contest, Little Miss Marvel ran up to Chewbacca, threw her arms around the fuzzy tree trunk he was calling a leg and cried out "I won 'Bacca! I won!" So, yeah, if you heard a weird cracking sound on Sunday, that was probably my just heart breaking into a million pieces from the unbearable adorableness of it all.

Now that I'm back home, I've got my work cut out for me. I have a HUGE show coming up on May 5th and there's a million things to do to prepare for it! I'll post more info on that later on this week.

Sketch Covers Complete!

I've just completed both covers and I'm extremely pleased with them!

The Scarlett Johansson portrait came out quite nicely. It doesn't look as much like her as I would have liked, but it's very close. I'm thinking about spraying her with some fixative, so the pencil won't smear, but I'm afraid of ruining the whole thing. Everybody cross your fingers!

In spite of all the trouble I had with it early on (i.e. spilling water on the first version and having to draw the web over again) The Widow's Web was a joy to work on. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I've decided to make several versions of these in different colors.

Both of these covers will be available for sale at Stormwatch Comics and eventually on my Etsy store as well.

Stormwatch Comics

(856) 768-8186

449 Route 73 N

West Berlin, NJ 08091

Avengers Updates

A quick progress report on the sketch covers: Both images have been transferred to the actual comic covers and are in the process of being inked.

The red image below is actually the second version of that cover. The first came in contact with water and was completely ruined. After inking it twice, I've got that web in the background almost memorized by now.

I must admit, it's been extremely frustrating to have to work on these pieces so slowly. If circumstances were normal, both of them would be done by now, but my home life as of late has been messy and spilling over into my creative life.

The transition from school to freelance has been rough, however I finally have a studio space at home that is functional and I'm well on my way to being organized enough to juggle my artwork, social life, and family obligations.

Spinning The Widow's Web

I'm VERY excited about this image! Much more so than the first, although I plan on finishing that one too. I've done a basic value study and have been playing around with the background to figure out what direction to go into. I like the bottom three thumbnails the best, but I'm not completely tied to either one of them just yet.

Scarlett Johansson, pt. 2

An update on the Scarlett/Black Widow image I've been working on:

I've been tweaking the face and working on getting it reattached to the

rest of her body. I haven't transferred it to the sketch cover yet, so here's hoping that the details don't change all that much when I copy it over.

I've also started laying out an image for another Black Widow sketch cover.

Although it's also based off of a reference photo of Miss Johansson, I'm not going to worry about capturing her likeness this time around. I just enjoy the pose she's in. Here's a preview of that one before I get to work on it.

The Trouble with Likeness

I'm finally back from California and I'm getting back into the swing of things with a portrait of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow.

And I'm discovering that capturing the undefinable Johansson-ness of her face is incredibly difficult. I've drawn her face over and over and

only a few have turned out even remotely successful.

Now I have dozens of images of lovely women who look nothing like Scarlett Johansson...

...and a handful of sloppy looking heads that somehow resemble Ms. Johansson far more than the more carefully modeled sketches do.

Picking out the minute differences is careful and tedious work. For example, here's one face in particular that I like very much, but which looks like someone else. And here's the reference picture I'm working from.

Some careful observations and a little more shading improves things slightly, but it still isn't quite there.

A little bit more work gets us closer, but I'm still not sure it's really recognizable as Scarlett. Try as I might, the lips still need work.

I want to make sure that someone how doesn't know who it's supposed

to be can look at it and recognize it without being told. I'll post updated sketches as the project progresses.

Comic Book Pin-ups

In order to make my booth more enticing to the comic crowd, I churned out a few last minute super heroine pin-ups before the show. I plan on making color versions of both of them eventually.

I didn't found out that I was going to have my own table at Wizard World until the last minute, but I am still quite pleased with how they came out. I'm hoping these two lovely ladies will be the first of many.

Another pre-convention project was the Julie Newmar portrait.

I'd heard that she was going to be one of Wizard's special guests, so I made sure to turn out a headshot of her to sell at the show. Some friends of Julie's who were traveling with her came by the booth and were really excited about it. I'd wanted to give her the original at the end of the day, but unfortunately,

she had to leave early and

I missed her. I will simply

have to wait until the

next time Ms. Newmar

comes around.

Finally, I used Wizard World as an excuse to cash in on an idea I've had for sometime now. I've got five words for all you Joss Wheaton fans out there:

Felicia Day Adult Novelty Cards

I won't hide the fact that I have a HUGE girl crush on Felicia Day and since a good handful of my friends feel the same way about her, I figured it was time to give the world what they wanted. To receive Miss Felicia Day as a present, sent by a thoughtful friend, through the mail.

But since actually sending that package is rife with legal and medical complications (there's nothing more worse than receiving a Box-o-Felicia that has gone bad, damaged in transit by careless postal workers) sending one of your Felicia-loving-friends one of these adult novelty cards is a much better option for all parties involved.

By the way, if you're interested in prints of any of these images,

all of the items I've described here are also available for sale on Etsy.

CORRECTION: After receiving a Cease & Desist letter from Felicia Day's lawyers, I will no longer be selling the Adult Greeting cards.