Spring Convention Season!

What a crazy April this has been.  Last week was bookended by huge conventions-Emerald City Comic Con one weekend and Sakura Con the next!  They were fantastic experiences and resulted in some new opportunities I'll post about when I'm allowed ^.~  Oh, and I spent enough money to pay my bills for two months on copic markers.  As one does when they are on sale.  Thought I was over my addiction--turns out I traded in my cute Japanese vinyl toy addiction for alcohol-based Japanese markers.  Whee!

Here's a little piece I copic-ed.  Working on adding entire Middle Grade and YA sections to my portfolio and playing with all kinds of new styles.

Those two weekends definitely made up for how sequestered I've been in my office.  I met so many cool people--new fans, great artists, charming customers, and impressive costumes.  More on costumes later, since Sakura con resulted in two fantastic costume-related moments.  Those stories deserve their own posts.  I also was able to meet Stasia Burrington, whose delicate and twisted artwork can be seen and purchased here, http://www.etsy.com/shop/stasiab .

I felt like I lived at the Washinton Convention Center, which is luckily a rather nice building in downtown Seattle.  And I ate an awful lot of delicious crepes from the little creperie right in front.  Highly recommend the fresh lemon crepe, it saved my life twice!  And New Saigon restaurant fed me a LOT of pho, which is pretty much what got me through the weeks.

Anyway, I'm late in posting this, but check out my spiffy new children's book illustration site: http://www.robinillustration.com/, built by Pete from http://heyitspete.com/  He's especially adept at building sites for artists and designers, and was able to work with my sketches and blathering to form what I think is a very streamlined and easily readable web experience.  Thanks, man!

A million years later

Apologies all for the long wait!  I'd like to say that the holidays kicked my butt, but I haven't been seen on here since September and usually Halloween doesn't count as part of the whole Christmas/Hannukah/etc winter cycle...

So let us have a retrospective of the last few months.  Since Jet City I had some good and weird convention experiences.  Steamcon III in Bellevue, WA was a lovely time!  The hotel was beautiful and the people-watching was inspiring.  Some fantastic customers I met there even gave me good ideas!  I used that event to show off some new pieces I'd done in my fantasy illustration style.

Chief among them, this cloudscape-with-airship-rest-haven, which I call Pontoonia Skybase.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/88221859/pontoonia-skybase-steampunk-airship

  And also this new coloring of an older drawing that has been re-fitted from an abandoned project (nice how things can work out)

http://www.etsy.com/listing/84164171/musica-ex-machina-steampunk-print

So, I tend to watch movies while I paint and color--I have to focus on the page when I draw, but when I lay in color and polish details, I need some distraction to keep from losing myself in carpal-tunnel land.  So when I see these two pieces John Carpenter's original 'The Thing' and both 'Poltergeist' sequels come to mind, despite the fact they're both quite full of story in their own right.  Next time you see me at a show, you can ask me what I was watching while I painted a piece, and watch me get very embarrassed ha ha ha.

My next big show was Portland's own Orycon, which was a great experience despite being very quiet for what I've come to expect from a 3-day show.  Very different crowd from comic book or anime shows, and it seems to me that the very fashion-and-participation-oriented steampunk culture does a better job of getting nerds to dress nicely and socialize, but there are some literary connections that Orycon has which make it unique!  I met some interesting people--including some fabulous local and semi-local authors--at the show, and a big shout-out goes to Damsel in this Dress, our con neighbor who did some generous trades with us, art for clothes!  How delightful.

To finish off the year, I did two smaller Portland shows, Geek the Halls at Trillium Charter school and the Stumptown Emporium in my own Mt Tabor neighborhood.  They were both great fun and rousing successes! I had a chance to show off this piece, which was commissioned from me in October:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/86688191/original-x-men-fab-five-mini-poster-8x12

This piece was commissioned by a fine fellow with his own blog, who has been giving me some nice press, so I'll return the favor and link you to him!  Or link you to his post about me.  Oh, internet, what a great engine for self-reference.  http://christopherjgibson.tumblr.com/post/10432240195/the-gorgonist 

Next time I'll talk about art for an artist in need, and identity crisis on the internet!