Valiant at FanExpo ComicCon in Toronto

[grendeljd]

One of many great highlights of the weekend for me was actually getting to do some drawing! There was an art supply booth giving away free sets of pencils and a sheet of heavy paper to draw on - the pencils were only free if you completed a drawing by noon on Saturday, to be submitted to a big 'Art Wall' in the lobby and judged by a DC editor. I was getting a bit stressed out because I didn't have any time on Friday to start my piece, and so I had to draw this one up really quickly on Saturday morning [turned out the noon deadline was a bit loose, so I doodled until one but it was still a rush job];



I'm still dissappointed that I didn't fix some major drawing mistakes in it, but of course, I drew a Valiant character!!

The absolute best part of doing this was that I found my pal Mike Rooth elsewhere in artists alley & sat with him while I drew this up. It was a tremendously positive experience, Mike is really good with his fans & I was feeling the vibe. Lots of people were asking to see my pic as I worked on it, I was happy to tell 'em all about the comic. One person asked me to do a commission, which I was absolutely not prepared to do on the spot [I just had the free pencils & sheet of paper on hand], and another person asked for a quick 20 second sketch in their pad for their very young son, which I was happy to do. I doodled a quick zombie face. The experience really inspired me to think more about having my own booth.

Here is my drawing posted up on the big Art Wall [upper left side];




There were some really great entries, & some odd ones.

Swamp Thing;


My personal favourite, a wood nymph;



And definitely the funniest & oddest one - Bat-Butt!;




At the end of the expo I collected my pic, and on a whim I decided to give it to Atom! & Peter. I hate to say its not the best work I've ever done, but now its gonna be up on the wall in the Valiant office somewhere... I think they at least thought it was pretty cool that I tried to do a #fanartfriday for them right there at the con [on Saturday ].

[hawkeyeps]

That's awesome JD

[lorddunlow]

Always impressed by your art, grendeljd! Looks like you had a great time!

[grendeljd]

That's awesome JD

Always impressed by your art, grendeljd! Looks like you had a great time!

Thanks, dudes!

I should mention that my pal Mike Rooth bought a copy of the Harby War/Shadowman flip book, and was thinking about doing a sketch on it. I told him I would mention it here as perhaps someone might be interested in commissioning something specific from him. Have a look at his website if you aren't familiar with his work, he is quite good! The screen is all black until you click a section in the upper left corner - note that he has a section of previously done sketch covers to look at [there are many - Mike is one hardworkin' dude].

He did a great XO pic a while back for #fanartfriday, I'll have to see if I can dig that up again for everyone to see.

http://mikerooth.com/gallery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I might even start a separate thread for this commissioning idea...

[grendeljd]

Here's another story I've been meaning to spill from the Con last week - [and sorry I've been slow to add posts to this thread, time management is an issue right now]

The Tale of P-Twitty!

Marrowman, you nailed the nickname here on this thread... Peter is the main man who handles the Twitter account for VEI.

On Sunday, Beyonder & I finally met up and we were chatting for a while near my booth in Artist Alley [& I was blatantly showing off my portfolio to him] when Atom! came strolling by. We flagged him down to say hey, and he remarked on the powerful magnetic forces of VFans standing in one spot, he was unconsciously drawn to our gathering

I told Atom! about Marrowman's nickname for Peter on the forum, and he thought it was awesome. He then said that he was absolutely going to get P-Twitty hammered & make him tattoo the name on his body somewhere, perhaps the back of his neck

He was certain he could do it, and then told us about P-Twitty's 'prison tatt'...

Seems Peter got a tattoo once before when hammered, and not just at a shop, but by another drunk dude who knew how to do tattoo's prison style with a needle & thread to drip the ink in... the tattoo was of the hydrogen atom, the symbol of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. Pretty cool, and a little bad-*SQUEE*.

I later asked Peter if he liked the nickname & he seemed cool with it, although it was more of a case of 'it could be worse'

I have yet to do this, but any Valiant Fans on Twitter should give P-Twitty a shout out & tell him @grendeljd sent ya! He may grow to hate me for this, even though he is a fan of my art - did I mention he recognized me when I first greeted them at the Con without even introducing myself?

[grendeljd]

Here is a shot of my final haul of goodies from the con - its a little light on Valiant stuff & comics in general [note those GI Joe issue's, Carson! ], but I already had everything I wanted from the booth, with the exception of a Valiant logo shirt. I don't know why I didn't grab one... too many distractions, I suppose! There were a lot of other things I was trying to do in between manning the booth for my wife & friend. I got a little bit of everything I was looking for this time.

I was hoping to pull the trigger on a high grade copy of Uncanny X-Men, there were several around that I was looking for, of the few issues I am missing between 100 - 133, and had my eye on a sweet #101... but I spent my money elsewhere, and most of the ones I was thinking about were bought up by the last day anyway.

Note the copies I got of The Beyonders comic, 'SpacePig Hamadeus' - including the one he uses as his avatar here!

The Star Wars book is absolutely gorgeous, which was my main reason for shelling out $60 for it - I don't do any 'classic' RPG'ing anymore, but i do design RPG rulebooks here & there - and I always like to see what the best of the best are doing. This SW book is a huge source of new inspiration for me, and its also full of really great background info on the SW universe, which has been fun to read.

[SnotDrip]

Drove down to FE on Sunday only and was surprised to see the VEI booth. Talked to Pete as well. There was supposed to be a VEI Panel that afternoon as I was standing at their booth when one of the FE folks came by saying there were perople waiting. It was cancelled but I guess some lines got crossed with the FE folks. Bummer.