Category: Blog Posts

On the Workbench: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2010

Been a little quiet around these parts, for I am hard at work once again trying to make things for this weekend’s upcoming Anime Weekend Atlanta!  I’ll also be unveiling a new variation on my Ichigo Hollow mask at the con. Probably the coolest version yet!

Here’s a sneak peek at all the new leathery bits on my workbench:

Butterfly keychains/barrettes & domino masks in various stages of
completion.
As always, if you’ll be at the convention and want me to bring something specific for you, let me know! I’ll be chilling in the artist alley all weekend with some special hand-embellished prints on display in the AWA Art Show.
Chillin’ like a villain.
I’ll also be debuting my Assassin’s Creed X of Swords prints at AWA, which will be available in a limited number in ACEO (2.5×3.5″) and 9″x12″ sizes.  I’ve been hard at work on this piece for the AC Tarot Project for some time! I hope it will be the first of many cool new digital things to emerge from my attempts at re-acclimating to the Wacom.

These prints will NOT be available anywhere else except from me directly in the artist alley!

After this, I’m happy to report I’ll have a 2 month break till my next convention (Atlanta Comic Con), which means HOPEFULLY that I’ll be able to get some new 2D artwork done and, with luck, some writing! I’m feeling the twitch again to get back to narrative works, which means I need to stop marshmellowing and get some writing done!  I do so love meeting everyone at cons, but it will be nice for a tiny break to dedicate to non-con related work.
Hope I’ll see some of you this weekend! If not, stay frosty, people!

Con Report: DragonCon 2010

My last entry covered most of my personal experiences with this year’s DragonCon. Now, it’s time for the convention report which I try to lean more towards business and artist related matters.

In a word, this DragonCon was a LIFESAVER.  I’ve heretofore done horribly at most conventions this year, as far as sales (but wonderfully as far as networking).  Not only did I break even, but I made a good little chunk of change to put towards my table fees for Atlanta Comic Con in December, and then some!

My display at this year’s DragonCon, 2010.
Introducing Shay, the Sassy Mannequin Head!
I attribute my success this year to a few changes in my table and gallery display. Last year, my table had barely more than prints stocked on top of it and no vertical motion at all. This year, I was able to project products from the table surface with the help of gridwall cubes, my new mannequin head (lovingly named Shay), and a couple of velvet necklace forms. I’ll be doing a post later with a more detailed breakdown of the evolution of my table and where I got my supplies, for the curious.
You can see more views of my gallery panel at my Facebook fan page.

As for my gallery display, my experiment of description cards next to the big pieces added a level of interest that enticed people to stay longer, as I suspected they would. None of the framed originals sold, but I did sell a decent amount of matted embellished prints, which proves that adding a special touch to your display really can make a difference! I don’t think I’ve ever sold that much out of my gallery panel in the few years I’ve been displaying in the show.

I also tried a strategy of marking up my after auction prices higher than quick sale or minimum bid prices, which made the need to bid more immediate lest one be forced to pay more later. This year I had a minor bid war over one of my matted limited edition pieces, which has never happened before.  A losing bidder actually came to my table to buy the print directly from me after he couldn’t bid higher, which proves having a bazaar table presence in the Alley is also a smart thing.

Once again, it seems my usable art sold better than my prints. The addition of my hobby items, including leather masks and keychains, was the driving force behind the majority of my higher priced sales.  I all but sold out of keychains and half of my masks, the most expensive being my limited edition January Mask at $135. (Amusingly, this mask sold to a tall bearded gentleman in handsome red leather armor. It actually suited him quite nicely!). This once again proves that people like art they can use.

Speaking of higher priced sales, I would not have done as well without my credit card terminal, which accounted for nearly half of my sales.  It’s made back its cost many times over by now!  I’m currently using First National Processing with a $22 fee while my terminal is active and a $7 statement fee when it’s deactivated (with low cost transaction fees and no limit on total sales).  I have a Nurit 8000 which I got for $200 included with a new member special offer when I first joined (a steal really!).

I had considered using my phone for running transactions, but reception has been very poor at nearly every con. Since the Nurit connects with satellites directly, it has no problem with reception and batches and authorizes cards wirelessly without having to call everything in via a phone. I’m bound to a 1 year contract, but if things keep going well, I’ll be sticking with First National for my credit card processing needs.  The only thing I don’t like is you can’t turn it off and on each month, you have to leave it activated for a few months at a time to be considered ‘seasonal’ before being able to turn it off without being charged a fee.

My charity “Bag of Holding”.

Anyhoo, back to the show!  As always, DragonCon’s art show staff was amazingly fast, helpful, and organized!  The addition of a traffic officer to help direct artists during load-in was a godsend.  Many thanks go out to John and Anne for being completely amazing organizers!  This year we did charity fund-raising for the Lupus Foundation by decorating Bags of Holding. How lucky for me that the Lupus symbol was a purple butterfly!

Things I learned this year:

  • Draping canvas over a backdrop frame lets you pin images to the back.
  • Banners hanging in or above gallery panels look really good AND give extra exposure for your name!
  • Never hurts to have signs in your gallery panel saying you also have a table in the artist alley/exhibitors hall.
  • People came to my table first and bypassed the panels. Seems like traffic is drawn to where they can meet people before they ever head to the panels.


Things I want to do next year:

  • Move to the exhibitors hall. Looks like the sales would be even better there! (Anyone in need of an exhibitor booth buddy? I’m in the market to share!)
  • Find a groovy way to display my books which will be out by then!
  • Find a better way to display my banner. Backdrop set is a minor pain! Those knock down ProPanels look super professional AND would fit in my little hatchback.
And that about wraps things up for this year!  I’ve left the show with many ideas for the future and the usual inspiration to do better next time.  Thanks for a great show, everyone!

Back from DragonCon 2010

Back home from DragonCon and oh what a year it has been! Within the first few hours, I met many cool folks from around the net, including a number of awesome folks from DeviantART. Plus countless old and new friends who stopped by just to say hello and offer their support. It made me feel so special to see the world so small and interconnected. It also gave me a warm feeling to see familiar faces from previous conventions I attended this year show up at DragonCon, which almost made it feel like a reunion.

I also met the model for my image, Night Blooming, and was able to give him a print of the picture he inspired. How surreal it was to see him posing before me!  It was wonderful to meet a few local faces, including Lindsay Archer and Annie Stegg. I sense an artsy meetup in our near futures!

Saturday I hosted the Monster in an Hour panel where SHARKTOPUS stole the show!  Many thanks go out to our participating artists who somehow managed to do something with the word prompts Pudding, Facial Hair, Saturn, and Big Feet.  We raised $40 for charity with the sketches, which is always a good thing!  I was plenty nervous hosting a panel for the first time ever as an announcer, so thanks to all the chatty folks in the audience who helped to make my job easier.  Topics of discussion included favorite zombie-slaying weapons, sparkly vs eat-your-face vampires, and other such tidbits of wisdom.

The highlight of my experience at this year’s DragonCon had to be meeting David Mack and Joseph Michael Linsner again this year. I’ve met them before, but always try to drop by to say hello each year.  This year, I gifted Joe with a leather mask I made based on his paintings of Dawn. He loved it so much, he offered to do a drawing in trade, despite my insistence that he didn’t have to. I’m so excited to see what he ends up doing for me!  As always, it was a pleasure to meet the very kind David Mack, who continues to inspire with his wonderful art and writing.

Ever since one of my biggest influences, Drew Hayes author of Poison Elves, passed away, I make it a point to go by and say hello.  I never got to do that with Drew, even though I had the chance, and I don’t plan to let those wonderful people who help to foster my creativity go without showing them how much I do appreciate them.

I left the con with a bunch of cool swag from Stephanie Pui Mun Law (Love love her new Dreamscapes book and my beautiful new tarot deck!) and a few new books from David Mack. I can’t wait to read The Alchemy and find out what’s happened in the time I’ve been away from the Kabuki-verse. I also picked up Joe’s latest Dawn story, Not to Touch the Earth, featuring a new tale of Dawn.  There’s just something even more special about being able to buy all of this stuff directly from the people who created them.

Finally, where would DragonCon be without a myriad of creative costumes to behold? You can see my public album for the few shots I captured whilst running around. I didn’t take many shots this year, but this wicked cool medieval Batman was definitely a highlight for me!

It was also a milestone as far as sales for me this year, but I will cover that in my next entry, as it seems this one has gotten a little long!  I’ve got two more weeks to recover before Anime Weekend Atlanta is upon us.  I think I’ll ride the sunbeams of inspiration until then. It’s been such a great weekend!  There’s nothing like being around so many like minds and artistic skill that gets my gears going for the rest of the year.

Devoured by the DragonCon 2010


Well, this will be my last post for a little while. There’s much to do and I’m tossing this entry up before company arrives from out of town and a mad last minute dash to tie up loose ends for DragonCon ensues!

I’m feeling a bit more enthusiastic since my last journal (no doubt because I’ve managed to accrue more than 6 hours of sleep at night recently) and I’m just so darned happy to be seeing old friends again.  Conventions are exciting for the prospect of making money, but also for getting out of the art cave for a bit and mingling with like minds.  I don’t know how long I’ll continue to look forward to conventions this way (apparently they have a way of jading you after awhile), but I’m going to try to hold on to this feeling of optimism while I can!

I’m also excited at the prospect of selling my paintings. I have more originals on display this year than I have ever had before and I’ve put double effort into making every piece in my display special somehow.  It’s going to be my best display yet!  I’m also trying something new in terms of display by having little descriptive cards next to my centerpieces that talk about what inspired the piece along with a sticker (if I can get it made in time) saying which pieces will be published in Angelic Visions next year.  Will it help my sales?  We shall see! (Full report to come after the show, as always).

By the same token, I’m dreading the fact someone might buy my originals!  I worked very hard on them and have grown so attached.  I want to just keep them squirreled away in a portfolio so I chitter over them and feel proud of myself for having finished something.   BUT I need to learn to let go some time.  That’s just the nature of the business and perhaps I’ll be more encouraged to make even better work to replace any that might sell.

Meanwhile, I could still use some helping hands at the Monster in an Hour panel at 7pm in the art track (Hanover G in the Hyatt) on Saturday, if any of you are interested and will be attending DragonCon! Just comment here or drop me a line. I have a few interested parties and at least 2 confirmed artists, but one can never be too prepared! The more the merrier.

Now, I’ve a last minute costume to make. See you there!

Sewing Up the Chaos

It’s that time of the year again where I start feeling antsy.  My biggest con is just around the bend, the book is almost here, and I’ve got so many things on the horizon that I’m unsure about.  Plus a nice bout of insomnia while the gears turn and turn each night trying to plan how things are going to go down.  I warn you that this is going to be a candid entry, as I’ve always meant for the point of this journal to be an honest look at my venture into being a fantasy artist.
It’s time to start planning the promotion of the book.  Will the book do well? Will I make enough from royalties to help pay for rent on a bigger place?  Will it flop?  Am I going to sell well at the next convention?  I just have no clear idea right now what being published by a major publisher will even mean, how it will effect my plans, and that is driving me a little batty.  I’m sure things will become clearer as I work with the company to learn what their promotional procedures are like, but right now waiting for things to come together is absolutely maddening.  But the publishing wheels turn, turn, turn and that is just the nature of things.  I wonder if this is how all debut authors feel when they’re in that limbo time between the finished manuscript and the publication date?
I’ve had a rocky start this year as far as convention sales, though they’ve been great for meeting other artists and not feeling like I’m trapped in a dark cave somewhere gnawing on raw fish a la Gollum and wasting my life away chained to my art desk.  Am I making a living out of this yet? Sadly, the answer right now for my first year doing this is no, not yet. I am surviving thanks to the loving support of family…which makes me feel somewhat guilty.  Next year, there will be art fairs to help supplement online sales (and HOPEFULLY licensing revenue..but still working on a portfolio for that and researching the ins and outs).
And of course questions always lead to other questions. What do I work on next?  What will bring in money (but also not make me feel like I’m selling my soul?)  Will my portfolio be good enough for the companies I’m looking at?  I’ve had a very strong urge to try to get back to writing and illustrating my own stories, but is this a gamble I can afford right now?  It’s where my heart is and all the universal signs are telling me character driven art is where I want to be, but there is still an aura of guilt that such ventures take time, even moreso than other things, and that it would be irresponsible of me to not make money now now now drawing things that take less time.
By the same token, good art should take awhile, it should be something we spend a piece with so we realize it to its full potential.  Oh how I envy the speed of other artists!  It’s something I’ve yet to achieve.  The luxury of being able to simmer overlong on ideas until they’re brought to me in a shining stork basket by the Muse is not mine anymore.  It’s been really hard adjusting to this fact too now that art is a job and not a past-time.  I feel an insane pressure to produce portfolio quality things all of the time, or I am wasting my time.  This has really put me in art block mode because I can’t lighten up and have fun with my work.  IT MUST ALL BE A MASTERPIECE or DEATH!
In a surprising twist of events, my new leathercrafting hobby has saved my butt as far as making up for table fees this year (and saving sanity as well!).  People seem more interested in it than my art, which is slightly annoying, but what good does it do me to be jealous of myself?  Sales are sales and at least I can have a little justifiable fun filling my table with a variety of things beyond prints, yet another by-product of being an experimental artist overburdened with too many hobbies and interests!
The only solution I can think of right to sew all of this chaos up is to find a way to hyper-charge my brain so I don’t need to sleep OR can somehow manage to work WHILE sleeping.  So while I ponder on that, I leave you with a laugh, for what lightens the soul better than a smile?
(Crazy optimistic OVERLOAD or ELSE!)

The DragonCon Rush 2010

A quickie post today because I should be matting and not blogging (and we all know how I will find any reason to delay matting things till the last minute).  I also really like making lists.  I’ve got till September 2nd (roughly two weeks), the day of art show setup for DragonCon, to get the following done:

  • Double-mat about 12 things
  • Embellish said mats
  • Find frames for the last of the original paintings that’re going on display (about 3 more to go?)
  • Replenish stock of leather butterfly barrettes, keychains, and necklaces
  • Possibly create a couple more butterfly domino masks (any suggestions on what species I should do next?)
  • Decide whether I want to go Assassin’s Creed or Linsner’s Dawn for a costume theme. I thought I’d have time to do both, but this is doubtful now!  This is purely optional, but oh so much fun!
I’m really looking forward to this year with a bigger and better table display than ever! I’ve learned a lot every time I’ve set up at past cons this year and have so many new fun products to share (including leathercrafts, mini-prints, and all sorts of lovelies).  I think I’m finally beginning to settle into this convention life.

Just when I say that, I’ll probably forget 15 bajillion things I should’ve remembered for the first day.  I’m also looking forward to seeing old friends again. Hee can’t wait till Windfalcon gets to town so I can kidnap her!

So wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll see some familiar faces there! 🙂

Con Report: Faerie Escape Atlanta

I’m back from Faerie Escape Atlanta with a very good feeling about the direction this con is going. They’re tapping a niche for mystical/mythical fantasy that I think will gain them a lot of followers, if they can keep it going!  The con was held in a small Holiday’s Inn, a refreshing break from cons that sprawl across multiple hotels with enough people packed into them to make you feel like a sardine. I also ♥ free parking and light traffic to this location!

Angelic Shades at Faerie Escape 2010.
Product placement galore!
This was FEA’s first year in operation and it showed with the lack of attendance for Sunday, when there weren’t as many events scheduled to keep folks coming back.  Traffic in the dealer’s room was all but dead.  What the con lacked in traffic, however, it made up for in the friendly atmosphere and good company. We sat next to Henna Belle, who provided us with lovely conversation and entranced us with her wonderful henna art. She was mesmerizing to watch!
I also met a couple of fantasy authors from Mercury Retrograde Press and was delighted to learn there was a small indy press here in Sandy Springs that catered to underground and character-driven fantasy works. They lured me in with free brownies and I left with two books I couldn’t resist, Secret of the Sands by Leona Wisoker (desert kingdom + prince + thieves=SOLD!) and Shorn by Larissa N. Niec (winged people + angst = Also SOLD!).

Both Larissa and Leona were kind enough to personalize my books for me, which was a treat. I’m hoping that once I get through my huge to-read pile that I’ll be able to work with them on producing some art for their books, which they both seemed highly interested in!  I’ve been wanting an excuse to illustrate something beyond my own stories and this seems like an excellent opportunity for me to expand my subject matter and try more challenging scene-based work.

The Phoenix and Dragon bookstore hosted the event, another place I’ve never heard of local to me!  They also display art in their store on a monthly basis, so will definitely be looking into that once a few more originals have returned from their travels abroad. FAE Magazine also expressed some interest in my art, which I’m hoping to ply my trade with submissions shortly!

So while I barely made more than $150 the whole weekend, it was enough to cover the cost of the Exhibitors table/gas/food and provided a good opportunity to network with people in my area.  Product-wise, my prints were all but neglected in favor of the leather carving, which really seemed to grab people’s attention!  All but one butterfly barrette (the comet moth) sold while half of the keychains and macrame necklaces were wiped out by a single customer.  Surprisingly, not a single mask sold, for as much as people were trying them on!  On the bright side, I won’t have to remake them for DragonCon, which is somewhat of a relief!  I am hoping to return next year to FEA with nothing but crafts and will probably be saving my print/art stock for DragonCon and Anime Weekend Atlanta specifically.
On a random note, with so many faeries wandering around, I feel compelled to make my own fae persona, which I have deemed the Butterfly Eater.  Costume with a ‘captured and impaled’ butterfly theme coming up!  Those good faeries won’t know what hit them. Mua ha ha!
Now, I have two weeks to get in gear for the next (and largest) convention I go to each year, DragonCon here in Atlanta!  I have around 22 images to mat & embellish, paintings to frame, and keychains to make.
So let the mad rush begin!  I’m armed with coffee, tape for my eyelids, and an unhealthy addiction to heavy workloads!
PS
My display (as you can tell from the booth photo) has evolved a bit! A new artist alley booth breakdown is coming soon!

Movie Spotlight: Re-cycle

I was going to write an entry on Inception, what with all the buzz it’s been causing lately.  But by saying that I didn’t really enjoy it all that much, I probably would be going against the grain of popular opinion.  No I didn’t necessarily enjoy Inception, though I did find it at least halfway intelligent and thought-provoking unlike the majority of movies that came out over the summer season.  


I went in expecting wild dreamscapes and an emotional thriller and I came out with the same kind of unsatisfied “eh” as I did after Shutter Island.  It was good, but it could have been better. It could have been pushed more.  More characterization, more world-building, just…more.  It fell flat in a few places for me (I’ll probably go into this in a later entry after I’ve had a chance to re-watch it and sort out my feelings in regards to this movie).


The main reason I didn’t enjoy Inception lies in my own expectations for a dream world.  I wanted a taste of the wild side!  For a movie that explored the depths of subconscious wastelands, it was particularly drab and mundane.  However, a dreamer can come to accept many strange things in a dream without necessarily finding it absurd.  The excuse in Inception was that absurdities would make a dream unstable so that a dreamer knew they were dreaming.  

Sure, there’s a city street that bends in half in the movie, but this wasn’t weird enough for me. After all, I’ve dreamed of zombie brides and melting houses and completely accepted those scenarios as ‘real’ at the time I was dreaming them.  Obviously, my tastes are a little more on the surreal side!

With those surreal tastes in mind, I’d like to put the spotlight on the little gem of an Asian film called Re-cycle (which inspired said dream of undead brides and melting houses) from the renowned Pang Brothers.  For those who crave the dreamlands of the strange and unusual, I invite you to consider the story of Ting-yin, a young novelist struggling to come up with a followup to her best-selling trilogy of romance novels. After erasing her failed draft, she begins to see strange, unexplainable things. 


The untold novel begins to seep into her world, where she finds herself haunted by her own character, who is horribly malformed because she was never given shape by her creator.  Pulled into an unstable dreamland built on the bones of forgotten things, Ting-yin must confront one strange vision after another to find her way out.


From heaps of lost toys to caves of fetuses, this movie only gets stranger by the moment.  By the time you get to the forest of forgotten suicides, you’ll feel like you’re in Dante’s Inferno, surmounting circles of sinners to find a way through Hell.

I’m not generally squeamish or affected by movies of this sort, but something in the layered concoction of surreal happenings in this film really stuck with me. So much so that I had the doozie of a dream that inspired my old painting, Risen. (more description about that dream at the link).  Re-cycle may make no sense when you describe the plot, but it’s the journey through a world rife with pure imagery that really makes it fascinating to me.


So if you have a hankering for the strange and unusual dreamscapes, give Re-cycle a look!  It’s available for instant play via Netflix and has been released on DVD.  While Inception has its place as a smart psychological thriller with surreal influences, Re-cycle and The Cell will always be the ultimate surreal dreamscape movies for me.

Sketch Diary: Angel of January Part 1

Faerie Escape Atlanta has definitely monopolized my time of late and drawn me deep into a frenzy of leather carving, rather than my usual 2D fair. Normally, I’d lament not drawing or painting anything for months, but this is a much needed break after being hard at work for nearly a year and a half making all new work for Angelic Visions.

That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my other projects, however! I know many of you like to see the creative process, so here’s a little peek into my next big series, the Angels of the Months.

I started this series a couple of years ago with the Angel of December, but was never quite satisfied with the amount of empty space left behind the figure and the window so never got past December.  This was a design problem that needed solving.

So with a glint in my eye and a pen in my hand, redesign began!

I like to draw thumbnails almost exclusively in BIC ballpoint pen because it is a very ‘loose’ medium. Ballpoint pen responds very well to pressure, meaning you can get very light pencil-like marks by pressing lightly or pressing harder for darker lines. It’s the controllability of the pencil without the fuss of erasing.  Not being able to erase is also a good thing for me. Since these are just thumbnails, I didn’t want to spend ages on them, which I very well might if given the option to erase!  I banged these thumbnails out in an hour or so.

The first thumbnail took the idea of the original Angel of December and translated her into a wholly new composition. The full figure was cropped to allow more detail to be poured into the face, costume, and wings.  The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th thumbnails deal with the Angel of January, whose themes include stepping into sunlight and the inclusion of a pomegranate as an allusion to Persephone.  I played with the pose trying to figure out the design problem of the wings.  Did I want them attached to the figure? As decorative carvings in the stone to the sides? Folded? Spread?  Nothing seemed to fit the composition the way I wanted.  Everything was too static with no flow!
Finally, the 5th thumbnail represents my ‘Eureka’ moment.  Turning the composition to a landscape format allowed me to fit more of the gorgeous wing flow while also allowing more space for a full-fledged stained glass window, an element I thoroughly enjoyed drawing in the original Angel of December.  This landscape format also works better for inclusion in a calendar format, which is a future plan I have for this series.
Next came the sketch phase where I doodled a more detailed concept of the figures.  Again, playing with both the December and January angels.  I continued the theme of January having a very Greek vibe.  Still pondering how to include the pomegranate and if it will clash with the Carnations and Snowdrops which are going to be included in her portrait.  I also photographed my own artistic references to help get my creative juices flowing.
And that’s where I’ve left off for now!  The concept continues to percolate in the noggin while I prep for my next rush of shows.  I’ve never had so many in one year so it’s been a learning experience for me to find the time to work AND to prep products for sale.
Once I get further along, I’ll be sure to keep you all updated!

On the Workbench: Faerie Escape Atlanta

Just a quick post tonight as it seems an unexpected workload has been dropped in my lap! Hayley informed me of an interesting little convention in my area called Faerie Escape Atlanta, a new age and mythic themed convention here in the metro Atlanta area! It was just the excuse I needed to use that neglected roll of shiny new leather in the corner of my room to make some fun things to add to my artist alley presence. I already have plenty of art tile pendants, mousepads, and art prints to sell. I thought it time to add something different to fill up my dealer space, which is bigger than I’ve ever had!

A fan on dA suggested making matching masks and bracers out of leather, which really got my brain going! Tree bark masks and bracers with mushrooms growing on them? Climbing ivy? Wings? The possibilities are endless! My muse is in overdrive (oh hello! I’ve missed you)

But first, I’m doing a simple prototype so I don’t spend a lot of time on something only to mess it up since I am a newb at designing armor. I’m basing this first set on my Centurion Mask. I’m also working on leather butterflies to sell as keychains and centerpiece pendants for necklaces.

My progress so far!:
The bracers still need to be buffed with copper paint, which I’m doing tonight before there will be any kind of sleep!

I also had a surprise encounter with a winged visitor to help spur my inspiration:

He’s a lovely Polyphemus moth who was about the size of my palm! I saved him from bees, but didn’t have the heart to add him to my collection. I let him go to live out the rest of his probably short lifespan.
And now back to work with me!