Leia and R2-D2 by Michael 'Locoduck' Duron

I haven't posted for a bit, so I'm going to knock out a lunchtime post today. We spent the weekend going down to Utah to see my wife's family and to attend Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2017. Once we got to the in-law's house, I realized that in the rush to get everyone out of the house, I'd left my backpack and laptop at home. While I could have written posts from drafts on my phone, that is a huge pain in the butt. I also was pretty wiped out each night, either from traveling or from walking around the convention hall. Eventually I will get all of my convention loot scanned and photographed for a post.

Yesterday was the day that Out of the Park 18 released for people who pre-ordered a copy. I wound up downloading it after work and playing well into the night, which I am paying for today. It is mostly the same game as last year, but there are some new features and obviously there are new rosters. I played two complete seasons as the Houston Astros, and won the World Series both years. I don't think I will be able to keep that run going, though, as some of my guys are getting old and expensive, and I pretty much cleared out my farm system to bring in the pieces that won me those titles. The budget is a huge deal when you're running a baseball franchise.

Today's card is another Princess Leia sketch. There was an eBay seller who was obviously clearing out a rather large collection of sketches featuring Leia as Jabba's slave. Usually I try to get sketches featuring Leia in one of her other Star Wars costumes, but this guy had a lot of popular artists at prices you don't usually see for them. I had to get a few of them to fill some artist gaps in my collection. This sketch card is from an artist that's been on my list for a long time, Michael 'Locoduck' Duron. I actually added one of Duron's licensed Star Wars sketches a while back, probably around the time I got this one.

I believe his day job is doing caricatures at a Disney park, and you can kind of see that influence in his artwork. A lot of his sketches feature chibi characters, but he also does more conventional stuff. There is a guy who does (did?) a charity event each year, gathering sketches and selling them on eBay to raise money for The March of Dimes. This sketch was done on some of that card stock, with a bonus doodle of R2-D2 on the back to go with Leia and R2-D2 on the front.

This Sketch Card is Loco(duck)!

I've mentioned about a million times that I have a long list of artists whose work I want to add to my sketch card collection. Lately I've been focusing on my two main sketch collections, DC's Power Girl and Princess Leia from Star Wars, but I leave wiggle room for other work that interests me. I don't want to put unnecessary constraints on my art collection.

One of the artists I've been tracking is Michael 'Locoduck' Duron. He's got a pretty distinctive art style that I like, and his sketches seem to be pretty popular. Art is kind of a weird animal, with prices all over the place, and his licensed Marvel and Star Wars work tends to sell a little (or a lot) out of my usual price range. Luckily, there are deals to be had out there, and when this Yoda / Chewbacca sketch from 2015 Topps Star Wars 3D Widevision: Revenge of the Sith popped up with a very low Buy It Now price I jumped on it quickly. It's a big full-color sketch of two popular characters, and I am glad I was able to grab it. I'd have to say that Leia and C-3PO are probably my favorite Star Wars characters, but these two aren't very far down on my list. I like the linework and coloring on this one, and in Duron's work in general. I saw that he does caricatures at one of the Disney parks, and I think that influence comes through in his art.

Here is the back of the card, with the artist's signature and Darth Vader. I like it when artists sign the back of sketch cards. It really helps a collector to seek out more art by that artist when the artist's name is somewhere on the card.