Stan Sakai Book and Sketch

Someone in one of the art groups I follow on Facebook posted about a good way to get an autograph and quick sketch from artist Stan Sakai, creator of the long-running Usagi Yojimbo comic series. Sakai is selling copies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles / Usagi Yojimbo crossover hardcover on his website, and each book ordered is signed and has a quick sketch inside. I don't know how long the deal will last, but here is the link if that's something you're interested in.

My book arrived today. Along with the book was this signed print featuring the cover art from Glimpses of Death, the 20th (of 32 so far) collected volumes of the comic.

Here is the cover of the book. The one Sakai is offering on his site is different from the regular cover. I am not sure how exclusive it is, but it is a variant cover. It's a nice hardback book. I was impressed by the quality of it.

Here is the sketch and the signature. Pretty cool stuff, and really cool as a free add-on for buying his book. He is a pretty big name in comics, and a lot of the bigger names will charge a significant amount of money for something like this.

I took a picture of a page from the interior where the Ninja Turtles and Miyamoto Usagi encounter each other. Pretty cool stuff. Just based on flipping through the book and looking at the art, I am looking forward to giving the book a read.

Power Girl by Renato Oak

I've been picking up a fair amount of artwork over the last few months, getting stuff from a variety of sources. Most of my focus has been on my Power Girl character collection, although I've gathered things featuring other characters, too.

This Power Girl artwork came from eBay. The seller is Cosmotrama Studio, which sells the artwork of a number of Brazilian artists. There are good deals to be had from them, but shipping is pretty costly. It's better to win a couple of items at once so that shipping is split between them. The artist for this one is Renato Oak, who seems to be most active on Instagram. I haven't contacted him directly, but it seems like his work comes up fairly often when Cosmotrama Studio posts a new batch of auctions. I like this piece. It's got good clean lines and colors, as well as a bit of a background. I think it measures around 6" x 9". 

Power Girl by John T. Howard

I've mentioned a time or two that I'm a member of several art groups on Facebook. Sometimes that leads me to obtain art from artists I probably wouldn't normally encounter. That was the case with today's artwork. 

Artist John T. Howard posted in one of the groups that he was open for commissions, along with a couple samples of his work. I won't look to his page from here, as his regular stuff is far from family- or work-safe. You can probably find him if you want to and aren't easily shocked. 

I have a certain fascination with art in the 'underground comix' style popularized by folks like R. Crumb, so I reached out and asked Howard if he could do a PG or PG-13 Power Girl commission for me. He agreed to do so, and quickly turned around the piece you see above. The art on the left is the original inked art, and the picture on the left is a digitally-colored print. He included some other stuff in the package, but my mail carrier left it outside in the rain and everything outside of the Power Girl art was water-logged and destroyed.

Overall, the commission process with John T. Howard was quick and pleasant, and I'd suggest working with him if you like the look of his art style. 

A Deadpool Sketch by Stacey Kardash

I showed off a Wonder Woman sketch card by artist Stacey Kardash almost two years ago, and I recently picked up another piece of her artwork from eBay. She also has an online store with a variety of stuff in it.

This is my latest pick-up of her artwork, an illustration of the Marvel character Deadpool. It's quite a bit bigger than your standard sketch card. I don't have it close at hand right now, but I think it's on a 5" x 7" piece of art board. It's a really cool piece of artwork, and I was happy to win the auction, although I do wish there had been more bidding on it. I like to get good deals on artwork, especially from resellers and flippers, but I don't like to feel like I'm taking advantage of an artist. I think this is my first Deadpool sketch, and it's a neat one. I like the pose and the expression on his face mask. It's interesting how expressive artists can make a plain mask look.

If you like this, you should check out Kardash's Facebook age and online store that I linked above. She does a lot of fantasy-themed artwork, but there is some superhero stuff in there as well.

Power Girl by Bun Leung

I'm a member of quite a few Facebook groups for showing off or advertising comic art and sketch cards. That's where I discover a lot of the artists whose art winds up in my collection. Earlier this year, I bumped into artist Bun Leung's work and started following his Facebook page. That also let me to his online shop, where he's got a variety of comic and pop culture art for sale. He's even got a section of affordable art with full-size sketches under $10 in many cases.

I picked up a She-Hulk sketch from his store, but I don't think that one ever made it onto my scanner before I put it away. Then I saw a post from him on Facebook advertising a limited number of sketches available for commission. I was able to get on the list, and I asked for a sketch of Power Girl for my collection. It didn't take very long at all before he sent me a picture of the artwork and shipped it out. I'm very happy with this sketch. If you're looking for affordable work in an anime-inspired style, I'd recommend giving his shop a look or following his page and looking for commission spots to open up. 

Boise Public Library Comic Con

I am working every weekend between now and the end of September to make sure all of my work gets done before the government's fiscal year is over, but I took off a little early yesterday to attend the Boise Public Library's Comic Con. For a library convention, there was a surprisingly large amount of stuff to do and see there.

The local Star Wars cosplay groups were out in Force, with representatives from the 501st Legion's Timberline Garrison for the Imperial cosplayers and the Takodana Base on the Rebel side. One of the Stormtroopers let my 8 year-old hold his blaster rifle. Our 6 year-olds were too intimidated to be in the picture.

Some of the cosplayers had their own trading cards printed up, and I grabbed whichever ones I could. I think I wound up with four of them, but they got tucked away in my wife's purse and I haven't asked her for them yet.

There was a pretty big room set up with LEGO displays and a table with a lot of pieces for kids to build. One of the twins focused his energy on building the tallest tower possible. He also liked the Great Ball Contraption that was set up on one side of the room, basically a LEGO Rube Goldberg device that moves little plastic balls around a loop of different machines.

The other twin built a complicated aircraft, while our eldest spent most of his time looking at the builds on display and asking us to come and look at his most exciting finds.

There was a pretty impressive guest list in the Artist Alley, with local artists as well as artists from around the Northwest and beyond. We were able to obtain a few sketch commissions, with the first being this Nightcrawler sketch by a local artist named Joe Bradshaw.

Steve Lieber was probably the biggest name on the guest list as far as published comic book work is concerned. We got a head sketch of Rogue from him for a very reasonable price. My social anxiety ramps up when I am out with the whole family, so I found it difficult to approach and interact with the artists. Luckily my wife was able to do most of the talking while I hung back and derped around.

Finally, we commissioned two small sketches from artist Ron Chan. We asked for Power Girl and Leia, and these sketches are perfect. I really like the Power Girl sketch. For the Leia sketch we asked for any version except Leia as Jabba's slave, and he surprised us with General Leia. I hadn't even considered that version of the character, but once I saw it I was really happy to have it. I think this might be my first sketch of older Leia.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a local library comic convention, but this one was really a nice surprise. There was plenty of stuff to see and do, and I wish we'd had more time and money to spend on art. There was enough stuff to keep the kids occupied, and there were a lot of panels and exhibitions that we didn't even get to see, like a display by the local wrestling club, some craft activities, belly dancing, a cosplay contest, and discussions for people looking to break into the comics industry. It might be worth checking to see if your local library has a comic convention or similar event.

Squirrel Girl by Flying Frog Illustration and a Wild 4th of July Weekend

Back in March I wrote about attending the Salt Lake Comic Con FanX with my family. One of the booths we stopped at while we were there was run by Flying Frog Illustration, and my wife picked up a couple of prints from her. Then in May, there was an original art sale on the Flying Frog Illustration Facebook page, for small framed paintings that she calls Magical Minis.

I was kind of angling for a Nightcrawler painting that she had up, but it sold before I committed to buying a painting. I was able to snag this Squirrel Girl art, though, and I am very happy with it. Squirrel Girl is kind of a fringe hero in the Marvel comic universe, but she currently has her own book that is done quite well. This is an awesome painting, with lots of detail. Some of the leaves are flecked with gold metallic paint that doesn't show well in the photo. When it arrived in the mail, I opened it up and showed it to my wife. She said, "Mine?!" and took it from me, and now I only get to look at it from afar, as it is sitting on her desk. That's the second painting she has taken from me, along with a Wonder Woman painting by John Soukup that hangs above her computer monitor.

We had a pretty eventful 4th of July weekend. On the 3rd we went whitewater rafting with my dad and some of his extended family. The river we generally go to is the Payette River. The Upper Main run makes for a pretty good family run, and we took the kids on that one. It was a pretty good time for everyone. I think it takes about 3 hours for that run, with 6 decent-sized rapids and a few other bumpy spots. There is a rope swing off to the side in a slow section of river. My boys are too small to do it on their own, so I took them on the swing piggyback. I got through the first two all right, but with my third kid I slipped a little on the rope. I was able to hang on long enough to get us safely into the water, but in the process I got some ropeburn on my hands, sprained a finger on my left hand, and wrenched my shoulder pretty good. I still can't do a whole lot with my dominant arm.

Back Row: Me, My Wife, My Dad, My Dad's Uncle
Front Row: My Sons

After that, we dropped off the kids and went on The Staircase Run, which is a short run with much gnarlier rapids on the South Fork of the Payette. We were maybe a little overconfident on that stretch, but we've run it a few times and managed to get through it all right. The river is flowing pretty fast this year, though, and the two main rapids on the run (Staircase and Slalom) proved to be too much for our crew.

The American Whitewater (AW) description for Staircase says that "Staircase is a challenging rapid with a very long swim if things go wrong....From the top of the rapid to the run out is about 1/3 of a mile." Well, a wave early in the rapid swept my wife right out of the boat, and she got caught up in a current while the boat hung up for a bit. We had to fight the Class IV rapid while also trying to get close enough to throw a rescue bag or reach a paddle out to her, and it seemed like it took forever. She said she was praying the whole time, and I was doing a mixture of praying and profuse cursing that I hope the Lord will forgive me for. At one point I was certain that she was dead or injured badly, as she kind of limply folded . We finally got her out of the water and pulled over to the side, where she dry heaved for a while and collapsed into the bottom of the boat. Luckily she was still conscious and coherent, but there was still one more Class IV rapid to go before getting to the take-out point and the truck. After determining that she was stable and discussing the options, we pulled over and took her up the bank to sit down in some shade until we could get the truck and come back for her. It turned out to be a good decision.

The AW description for Slalom warns, "This rapid is more of a class IV- than a class IV, but it is a challenging rapid with unpleasant consequences if you end up in one of the holes." Well, guess where we ended up? We caught a sideways wave from the first hole, and the raft tilted almost vertically on its left side, with a big wave pouring over the edge. I saw that things had gone well wrong, and I grabbed onto a rope and rode through the wave. Once the raft cleared the wave, thankfully without flipping, I looked around and saw that I was the only one still in the boat. I saw one guy off to my left, so I pulled him in, and we saw another guy close by and helped him get in. Then I fell over the rack in the back and scraped up my leg, but I was able to recover and help my dad over the edge and back into the boat. It took a while to locate and catch up to the last man in the water. He had been swept a little further from the raft, but we pulled him in with a rope. We all wound up sitting in different spots than we'd started the run in, but there were just a few waves left before the takeout. Then we got things packed up and went back up the road to recover my wife. She was feeling a lot better by that point, but her legs were pretty beat up.

It was quite an ordeal, and I am glad that my wife survived her long swim through a very rough stretch of water. I've been rafting a fair number of times, and there have been times when I was concerned about someone, but I've never seen someone take a swim that bad before. I really thought we might lose her. She has one toe that is broken for sure, another toe that is probably broken, her feet and her knees are pretty scraped up, and she's got a nice big bruise on her hip, but given how it could have ended I am overjoyed just to have her upright and taking on air.

I think my wife has sworn off that part of the river for good, but I could probably be persuaded to do it again some day. I don't think I'd want to take her on it again, though, and it will be hard to convince me to take my boys on it when they're older. I guess I have a higher tolerance for risk to myself than I do for any of them. I do think that accepting a certain level of risk leads to a full and exciting life, but sometimes it's hard to balance my desire for my kids to have memorable experiences with my desire for them to be safe.

For the 4th we kept things pretty low-key. I bought a couple handfuls of fireworks and sparklers, and we went outside as it got dark to set them off. There were several other families up and down our road with fireworks, and we kind of got into a rhythm where we would light our fireworks in succession, so there was just one fountain going at a time. It extended the firework show for everyone, and every so often we'd see a big aerial shell go off somewhere around us. It was a nice evening, and the kids had a good time watching fireworks and playing with the neighbor kid in his yard after we ran out of sparklers.

Inktober Sketches and a Pin by Kate Carleton

I got my Star Wars sketch card draft queue whittled down quite a bit, but now I've got a backlog of Comic Book sketches and Japanese wrestling cards built up, along with handfuls of other stuff and a surprisingly large number of baseball card draft posts. I guess having too many things to post about is a good problem to have.

I also have (somewhat) recently received a couple of packages from other bloggers that deserve to be posted about, but the sheer amount of stuff they sent has made it difficult to get the cards on the scanner and ready to post. I will get there eventually, SumoMenkoMan and madding.

Today's post features a package I got from an artist who has been featured a few times on this blog, Kate Carleton. This purchase is split into two parts. The first part is these two sketch cards. There is an art challenge every October called Inktober, where many artists will try to do an ink drawing every day for the month. Carleton was offering her Inktober sketches on her webstore, and any sketch purchased would get colors added to it before shipment.

I ordered a couple of them, a Darwyn Cooke-inspired Wonder Woman, and Rowan Atkinson's man-child character Mr. Bean. I love the art that Darwyn Cooke did, like his DC: The New Frontier mini-series from about a decade ago. He died in 2016 from lung cancer, which is extremely unfortunate. I also love Carleton's take on the concept.

Mr. Bean is also a favorite of mine. I really like all of the television stuff Atkinson did with the character, and I love the Bean movie more than anyone probably should. I've never thought to ask for a sketch of the character, though, so I was glad to see him among the Inktober sketches on offer. I've heard rumors that Mr. Bean might be making a return to the movie screen soon, but I don't want to get too hopeful.

Carleton has closed down the webstore I purchased these from, as she has been busy with conventions and the like, so I am not sure where you can go to look at her inventory at the moment. I linked to her Facebook page a couple of paragraphs ago, and she is pretty responsive there. That's also where she makes announcements about sales and commission opportunities. She's got sketches in the new Star Wars 40th Anniversary set from Topps, as well as the Clerks set coming out from Upper Deck. She's also been involved in a bunch of past releases from Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and small-press stuff, so you can find her work fairly readily on eBay.

The second part of this package is an enamel pin featuring her logo. She offered these up for pre-order, and anyone pre-ordering a pin also got a sketch. I couldn't turn that down, so I ordered one. It's even serially-numbered # 6 / 100. She has this pin as well as a few more designs available in her Etsy shop.

This was the sketch I received with my pin order, which features her avatar in a different pose. I kind of wish I had an avatar of my own that I could use to put my brand on things, but I guess first I would need to actually be creating something of value. Maybe someday.

She also included a business card with some of her social media stuff on it. That Storenvy link is the store where I purchased the sketches from. I am not sure if she will reopen it, or if she will move her sketches to the Etsy shop at some point. I'll likely be watching both sites, as well as her Facebook page.

How Much is This in Imperial Credits?

Over a year ago, I posted about some painted dollar bills I'd gotten from artist John Soukup. Those ones were superhero-themed. A couple (few?) months ago, I picked up another handful of them from his eBay store, with this batch focusing on Star Wars characters. It took me a while to scan them and get them to the front of the posting queue.

First up are a couple of Star Wars heroines, Leia and Rey. In the typical Soukup fashion, both are holding pickles in their hands. I haven't thought to ask him, "Why pickles?' but I imagine he has his reasons. The Leia card is what drew me in to bidding on these, but I usually check out his auctions anyway, just to see what cool stuff he's come up with. 

I also got a few other characters, including cantina patron Momaw Nadon, bounty hunter Greedo, and Darth Vader. At the time these were up for auction, there was also a Boba Fett bill listed that I lost out on when I got distracted as the bidding closed. That was disappointing, but I've become a lot better about not getting worked up when I lose an auction. There will always be another cool thing out there for me to add to my collection, and most of the painted bills on offer wound up coming to me anyway. I really ought to stop by the Art-o-mat machine here in Dayton while I'm in the area. I'm in a different hotel this year, so the gallery is pretty far out of my way. It still might be worth the trip, though, to see what they've got in the machine this time.

Katie Cook Stormtrooper Sketch

It's time for another Star Wars sketch, but this time it's not a sketch of Princess Leia. I would love to get a Leia sketch from this artist, but her work is quite popular and I haven't seen one come up in my price range yet. When I can't get a sketch of my favorite characters from an artist on my wish list, I will usually just put bids in on auctions until I get one at a discounted rate. That's what happened here.

Katie Cook has a distinctive art style and is pretty famous, especially in the Star Wars and My Little Pony worlds. She has done a fair amount of licensed sketch card work, and Cryptozoic devoted an insert set to her work in the DC Comics: Women of Legend trading card product.

The sketch I picked up was one of her mini-paintings, which is her way of making sure the largest number of fans can get an example of her work at conventions. This is a Star Wars Stormtrooper, who has apparently seen something that causes concern. I'm guessing he's seen an enraged Wookiee. Someday I would like to get something a little more robust from Cook, but this is a nice placeholder until that day comes.

She's got a Facebook fan page and an Instagram feed that she is updating with regularity as of this writing. There is also an art agent who seems to represent most of the My Little Pony art talent, and Katie Cook's page has a few pieces of published art and some prices and examples for commissioned work. A couple of sketch commissions from her are on my wish list, for sure.

Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2017

I mentioned yesterday that we went to the Salt Lake Comic Con FanX 2017 over the weekend. We had a pretty good time, and here's my rundown of the experience. The first day, we had one scheduled event, a photo op with "Weird Al" Yankovic. Because there are five people in our family, and the photo op rules stated you could only have four people in a photo, our plan was to have my wife and the kids in the picture with Weird Al on Friday and me and the kids in the picture with Stan Lee on Saturday. The line for passes was very long, but some con worker came down the line and said people who ordered Gold or VIP passes could skip the line. We had Gold passes, so we walked past thousands of people and it took about 3 minutes to get our wristbands and get in the door. Good stuff. I'm glad we paid the extra for Gold passes, as you only get so much time before the kids get out of control.

One of the first booths we saw upon getting inside the convention hall was Agnes Garbowska. She's worked on quite a few things, but I know her for her work on the My Little Pony franchise. I'd seen her name on the list of attendees, but I figured she'd be overrun with Bronies and that I wouldn't be able to get a sketch from her. I was wrong on one point, as her line was short that early in the day, and she did this Fluttershy / Philomena sketch for me. She was also overrun with Bronies, though, as the guy in front of us definitely met the stereotype. As we walked by her booth throughout the weekend, we saw more of them gathered near her booth. This is my second Fluttershy / Philomena sketch by a My Little Pony cover artist, as Mary Bellamy did one for me a while back.

We also snagged a couple of her business cards, which have some artwork and all the details about her various social media accounts. I would have liked to get more sketch commissions while I was at the convention, but it just didn't happen. It was disappointing to just get the one sketch, but at least it was from my favorite artist on the guest list. She was really nice, too, talking to the fans and interacting with us while she worked on the sketch.

We looked around a little more, but then it was time to go and check out Celebrity Row and the lines for photo ops. That area was too small, as the lines to and from photo ops doubled as the access halls for celebrity autographs. It wound up being just a solid mass of people pushing forward in an attempt to get to their photo ops on time. Our kids hated it, especially the leftmost one in the photo. He has a hard time with noise and crowds, and we were surrounded by those things.

Just as I got the wife and kids into the line for the photo, a voice came over the P.A. system saying that Stan Lee had cancelled his appearance. That meant we wouldn't be getting our photo op with him. I tried to purchase an additional Weird Al pass online with my phone, but they were sold out online. Then I went to beg my case with the people at the service desk so that I could purchase a spot in the photo with my family, but they were cash-only and my wife had the cash. I went back through the crowd to get the money at an ATM, and just as I got back through the crowd to pay, my wife texted that they were probably too close for me to get there in time. I went back out through the crowd so I could meet them at the exit, and she texted that she had gotten out of line so that we could go together. Again, I pushed through the crowd and we went to buy an additional ticket. The people at the counter said that our kids looked like they were pretty big for being three years old (kids under three weren't charged), and that we could get by on the pass we already had. So we rushed to the line again, and got in just as they closed it off. We were the last Weird Al photo in that group. I should have stood closer to him in the picture, but I have personal space issues. I'm glad that we were able to get the family photo and meet Weird Al. His music was a big part of our childhoods, and my kids know him from appearances in kids' shows and music videos we've shown them.

Once we got through the photo op, the kids were about to go into full meltdown mode, so we walked to the mall next door for lunch. There is a creek that runs through the mall, so the kids were excited about that. They played in a big fountain and spent some time looking at fish in a pond. Once we got back to the convention we went to Kid-Con, which had some face-painting and craft stuff set up, as well as an obstacle course and a Harry Potter quidditch game. The quidditch game was geared for older kids, but the Wizard Training obstacle course was about right for our children. They went through that and got certificates and capes with the Subaru logo on them. Once we got through with Kid-Con, we decided that we should go back to the house as the kids just weren't going to last much longer and all the walking had worn us out, too.

We took the trains to and from the convention, as parking costs about as much as train passes anyway, and taking the train is convenient and acts as an adventure. The train station we went to is in the middle of the street, so you only go partway across and turn to go up onto the platform. Once we got up there I did a headcount and one of the twins was missing. We started looking around for him and told the police officer standing there that we were missing a kid. While we were doing that a train rushed past, which is pretty much the worst thing to see when you've lost a kid at the train station. Luckily, we spotted him after the train passed, crying and running around on the far side of the street. We are usually very good about keeping track of everyone in parking lots and public areas, but in that split second we turned into the train station and he continued across the rest of the crosswalk. I'm glad he stayed off of the train tracks.

Late in the day on Saturday, I wanted to get Weird Al's autograph and say hello. The line was pretty short when we walked by, so we were able to pick our items and head into the booth. He looked pretty tired and frazzled after being run ragged for two days by the convention folks, but he was friendly enough. He signed a copy of his latest record for us, and we also got him to sign one for my wife's brother, who let us stay at his house over the weekend. We also left the kids home on Saturday, so we picked up some Dr. Who prints for my wife's mom, who watched all the kids on Saturday. I haven't listened to the record yet (no record player), but it does include a free download, so I'll have to get that going soon.

While the Agnes Garbowska sketch was the only original art I picked up, I did get some other things. These Leia prints from C Wilson Art are too big for my scanner, so I borrowed images from the artist's website. These are pretty cool. I might have to find frames for them and put them up in my office. He had a lot of neat stuff. The original for the older Leia was hanging in his booth. I was afraid to ask if it was for sale. I might still ask him, though. That would be a cool piece to hang on the wall. My wife made several purchases from his booth (and life) partner, artist Holly Randall of Flying Frog Illustration. I thought her work was pretty cool, but I was more drawn to his side of the booth.

Matt Loveridge had a booth set up nearby, and I was drawn in by his art style and specifically these playing card illustrations he had hanging up. Very cool stuff, and he is also a pretty nice guy. I purchased a deck of the cards, which feature superheroes on the Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces, as well as Deadpool on all of the eights and Joker and Harley Quinn on Joker cards. He also has the jester frog on a Joker to act as his business card. I may have to see if he will do a commission or two through the mail.

We saw an artist going by the name Xinophin working on a Leia sketch in between C Wilson Art/Flying Frog and Matt Loveridge, and my wife noticed she was doing quick sketches for $5. My wife is pretty reluctant to spend money on art, but she wanted to get a Nightcrawler sketch done at the convention in honor of the baby we lost a couple of weeks ago. I think it turned out nicely.

The other main event of Saturday was to get Verne Troyer's autograph. Part of the draw for buying the Gold passes was that you got autograph vouchers that could be exchanged for autographs from a list of several celebrities. You could also exchange an autograph voucher for $10 off on a photo op, which we used on my wife's pass to save a little on the Weird Al photo op. Troyer was the only celebrity on the exchange list that I was really interested in meeting, so I picked up my official photo and got in line for the signature. It took a while for him to come out and he looked pretty worn out by all of the running around, but when it was our turn to go up to the table he was super friendly, talked with us for a few seconds, and gave us fist bumps after he signed the picture. I definitely left the autograph line as a bigger Verne Troyer fan than I was previously.

And that about does it for my Salt Lake Comic Con FanX report for 2017. Supposedly the FanX in the spring is smaller and focuses more on pop culture in general, while the larger Comic Con in the fall is larger and more comic-focused. I would like to attend either convention again, but I would like it if the convention staff would put out artist alley information more in advance of the event so that I could line up commissions online beforehand. That usually works better for me with my social anxiety issues. This convention likes to roll out the guest list in waves, like it's all a big secret. Some people get off on the anticipation and excitement of all that, but I want all of the information as early as possible so I have time to plan. I had a pretty good time at this convention. There were plenty of cool cosplays to gawk at, lots of neat artists and merchandise to browse, and I got to meet a couple of famous people. We also got to ride the train, go out for ice cream, and see my wife's family. The kids especially enjoyed playing with their cousins.

Some Holiday Sketches by Kate Carleton

One of the artists I follow on social media, Kate Carleton, offered up discounted sketches in her webstore during the holidays. I already had a couple of her licensed sketch cards in my collection, but I wanted some art from her for my two main sketch collections, Princess Leia and Power Girl.

She made these while streaming on Facebook Live and I happened to be logged in at the time, so I got to watch the process. They were originally supposed to be smaller sketches, but she said she ran out of the smaller stock and wound up upgrading them to 5" x 7" illustration board, which is a bonus because artists usually scale up prices based on the size of the work. Watching the art being made is pretty cool, and it gives you an idea about the amount of work it takes to get these things done. Each of these sketches took 40-50 minutes from start to finish.

When I watched the video, my own personal hangups led me to misinterpret a couple of things that Kate said, and I wrote about it here. She contacted me with some clarification and I hope that I haven't soured her on selling art to me, as I am a big fan of her work. I put my foot in my mouth from time to time, and I feel bad about passing judgments on someone I don't know well based on a few minutes of video. Artists are people, too, and I am sorry that I jumped to conclusions. I am quite happy with the finished sketches, and I am glad to have Carleton art for both of my primary sketch card collections. I feel weird deleting my grouchy rant completely, but I did make it harder to read and I would encourage you not to read it. I hope that Kate Carleton will accept my apologies for writing it.

If the video has sound, you also learn what the artists think of your requests. It sounded like Kate was kind of disgusted by people who request Power Girl sketches, and she was a little burnt out on Star Wars. I could be reading too much into it, but I felt a little insulted. I know that people tend to view me as kind of a negative or slow person because of the way I speak, so I could also just be reading her voice and phrasing wrong, just like people do with me. There are plenty of nasty trolls in the fan bases of both characters. She doesn't know me personally, and maybe her interactions at conventions or online have created a certain impression in her mind. Most of us at least occasionally spend time complaining about our customers and/or our work. I just do my complaining squirreled away in a government office building, while artists doing videos are kind of out there in the open. As an art consumer, I just interact with the art as an excited recipient. For the artist, it is just work, like me grinding away at writing a contract. It was just a couple of comments that I could be overreacting to, but watching the rest of the videos is pretty neat. I don't want this to turn into a negative review, but that stuff has been stuck in my head and I needed to get it out. I am happy with her artwork and generally enjoy her posts.

I think these sketches turned out very nicely. I like Kate Carleton's work, and she is on the list of artists I regularly search out on eBay. She's also got some licensed and unlicensed sketch cards on her webstore in a variety of price ranges, so if you like what you see here there are a couple of venues to get your own Kate Carleton original artwork.

Sketch Card Week Bonus Round: Sketches from Emerald City Comic Con 2012

These aren't sketch cards, but I haven't ever posted the sketches I got at the 2012 Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC). My other blog has a post about the sketches we got at the 2006 ECCC, if you want to check those out. My wife and I went to one previous ECCC while we were dating (maybe 2004? I don't think we knew each other in early 2003 and I was in Iraq on the 2005 dates), but we didn't get any sketches at that one. I don't remember a lot about the interactions we had with each artist for this post, but oddly enough I have a map in my head for approximately where in the convention hall each artist's table was located. I'll try to remember as much as I can.

One thing I definitely remember is that the show got a lot bigger between 2006 and 2012. The hall was super-crowded, and we had our twins who were just over a year old in a huge double stroller that we were trying to push around, as well as a second stroller for our three year-old boy. I have grown in patience over the years, but about halfway through the first day I was ready to leave and go straight home because the crowd was getting me frustrated. My wife talked me down from acting rashly, and we made a better plan for getting around and seeing all the stuff.

I don't know if artists like this or hate it, but I take a list of characters I like and ask them to sketch any character on my list that they feel would be cool. Sometimes I have a list of artists I am looking for, but I will also stop at any booth where I like the art on display and there isn't much of a line. If I recall correctly, Randy Emberlin was set up near to some huge megastar-type guy like Adam Hughes or something, and his booth was kind of overshadowed by the line for the other booth. I wasn't familiar with Emberlin's previous work on Spider-Man, but I liked what he had on display and he did this awesome old-school Punisher for me. 

I am having some difficulty remembering if Jon Morris drew this for us on request or if he had it already on display. I have a vague memory of having to figure out how to transport the piece while the paint used for Mr. Freeze's gun dried, though. That could be a false memory, though. Either way, he's got a pretty cool art style and I like his stuff. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that he chose Mr. Freeze from my list and drew him right there in front of us.

I am having a similarly difficult time remembering how we got this Cookie Monster sketch from Adam Watson. I think he was set up near Jon Morris, though, and they might even have been sharing a booth. I noticed that Adam Watson recently reblogged something that Jon Morris posted, so they know each other well enough for that. I don't know. He also appears to be interested in entomology, which makes him all right in my book. I was an Entomology minor for a while during my first attempt at a college education.

I don't remember a lot about Dean Trippe. He had some cool prints and I think I knew his name from seeing some of them online. At that time I was looking at a lot of comic book fan art, probably in preparation for this convention. He did this nice Spider-Man sketch for us, complete with tingling Spider-Sense.

Chris Burnham did this She-Hulk sketch for us. He drew it on a really big piece of paper, which is cool, but it was hard to carry around. Most of the other artists used paper from the sketch pad I was carrying around in my backpack or smaller paper of their own. So I had to figure out a way to carry this large paper without it getting destroyed. It's a pretty cool sketch, though.

Colleen Coover was really cool, and we chatted with her and her husband, Paul Tobin, for a little while. I think we chose this Wonder Woman sketch from her portfolio, and then she personalized it for us.

We barely caught Laurie B! as the convention was closing down. I think she was pretty burnt out after a long weekend and she apologized that she couldn't do a free sketch. We weren't expecting a free sketch anyway, and she did this Power Girl sketch for a very reasonable price. Getting a sketch from her was probably one of the highlights of the convention for me. I love her work, and I was glad that she made time for us even though she was ready to get out of there. You might be wondering why I would wait until the very end of the convention to get a sketch of a favorite character from a favorite artist. I don't know. Things just worked out that way.

I think I was drawn to Michael Cho's booth because I liked the prints he had on display, but I may have gone looking for him specifically. He's got some cool stuff out there. I'd probably seen some of it online prior to the convention. He did this Captain America sketch for us. 

The only sketches I commissioned before the convention were a group of three sketches featuring the characters my kids are named after by artist Jeremy Dale. Because they were pre-commissioned, they are a lot more detailed than most convention sketches and they cost me a little more. But it was totally worth it. This is some good art. First up is Hulk.

Jeremy and his wife, Kelly, were very friendly and we talked to them for a while when we went to pick up the sketches at his table. They were nice people, and they seemed like the kind of people we might have hung out with in real life 1) if we lived near each other and 2) if we were the sort of people who hung out with other people. Anyway, they were cool and friendly. This one is Wolverine. My scanner and my phone camera both have a hard time with the colored paper that these are done on, so the colors are a bit off.

Sadly, in November of 2014 I saw that Jeremy had died very suddenly, and it later came out that he had an autoimmune disorder triggered by a case of the flu. Obviously I only knew him from a short conversation at a convention, but it's one of those events that sticks with me for some reason. This third sketch features Thing from The Fantastic Four.

I don't remember much about meeting Leigh Kellogg, but this Rogue that he did for us is super cool. In trying to search out more information on him, I discovered that he worked on several video games I enjoyed, like Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far and MechCommander 2 from a while back, and more recently the Facebook/Mobile game Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Unfortunately, Disney very recently decided to shut down Avengers Alliance, a game that I played quite a bit over the last couple of years.

We got a lot of good sketches at ECCC 2012 and we've been trying to get to another convention, but it seems like the dates and finances never quite match up. Maybe 2017 will be our year to go to one of the conventions in Portland, Seattle, or Salt Lake City.