APEcon 2010 Recap Part one

Quite a whiles after APEcon, I'm able to sit down and go through the various business cards, flyers and advertisements I'd picked up at the con. In alphabetical order, I'll discuss which sites/contents I like, and which ones I had personal interaction with in terms of the artists or creators behind the stuff presented on each site.

Business Cards:

*** 6th Circle Comics A webcomic about tattooists at the '6th Circle Tattoo Parlor' I haven't read it all, but in skimming through it, I can see it's a good read, underground humor about body modifications and tattoos. I met one of the maintainers, who was drawing a wicked sweet Darth Vader.

***** Jed Alexander I met this man and his wife. He's incredibly talented, and very kind. He has this wonderful Jean James-esque piece of elephants and a cityscape and if it weren't for the size of the poster I would have bought it. He drew me an elephant and I bought postcards, one of which has said elephants and cityscape. An incredibly talented and nice man. You can see the elephants and cityscape piece here.

Adrianna Bamber I don't recall seeing her table, so I might've gotten her card from the freebies table, but she does adorable animal paintings, I really enjoy her Unicorn family portrait, under 'Pony Portraits."

Aggie Cheung I really liked the art pieces she had at Apecon, so I picked up her card. Looking at her site, I'm awed by her different styles and techniques, and really like her "Couples' piece

***** Alain Norte This guy is talented and nice. I saw his pieces and he had a sign saying 'ask about con sketches' which I did. He agreed to do a BEAUTIFUL Jean Grey, and I love it so so much. I also love that he drew her as powerful and beautiful without going for cheesecake and fanservice.I was actually a little worried as I walked away after leaving my sketchbook with him considering his Powergirl in a swimsuit piece on prominent display on his table (although, let's be honest, it's kinda hard to draw PG without having to include fanservice isn't it?)but he drew her tastefully and beautifully. If I see him at another convention, I'll be begging him for another piece to add to my collection. He also does great zombies :3

Amy Martin Another table I didn't really look at, but looking at her site, she has comics she's made for sale and the artstyle looks crisp and clean. Not much else to say.

Andrew Mar Looking at his stuff, I keep thinking I'd stopped at his table and looked at his art, but I can't remember if I did or not, but I like his works, his asian women perspective studies are beautiful

The Anthology Project A collection of different artists and their own comics all combined together (hence the 'anthonlogy' in the name I suppose) with different ideas and talents. This site looks interesting and I'll be looking at it in more depth at another time. I don't recall what I saw at their booth, but I must've liked it enough to pick up their card.

Elle Johara Also does lesbiandrama, a webcomic I haven't read. Her stuff is pretty funny, although I can't remember how much of it I saw at APEcon.

Bees and Murderers I originally picked this up because, after all, how can you resist a card with a cute bee saying 'Bees and Murderers"? I didn't look at his stuff when I walked by, it didn't seem like something I'd like, and going to his site, I'm not able to read the comics easily, at least on my computer and I like some of his works, especially under the 'illustration' part, but overall, I'm a big fan of the title itself.

Brandon Bird OMG this guy. I saw him at last year's APEcon where my friend bought his 'Christopher Walken' poster and a set of his Law and Order valentines cards. He mixes realistic portraits of actors with surreal situations, like a wonderful piece of his of Sir Ian McKellen, as Magneto, with baby chicks all over him, or his piece of Nicholas Cage being embraced by a baboon or something like that. He's talented and offbeat.Said Sir Ian piece: here

Brianna Harden Originally I picked up her card for the cool bear painted on it, but looking at her site, she's immensely talented, I love her 'Something you can't return to' piece and her hairstyles piece from the front page.

Brynn Metheney She specializes in animal illustration, and even does realistic images of animals she's invented or altered.

Buluchu This woman shared the table with Aggie Cheung, and I actually remember her! She had these cute purses and a clever idea she'd made, of an bracelet.. thing with a hook, for keys, so you could put the band around your wrist, but it was covered in cute material, not like the spiral plastic that always pinches my skin. I was SO tempted to buy one of her wallet/purse things that folded over and over, but I was trying to conserve my money. I'll definitely be checking her site out and keeping an eye on her products.Looking at her shop, she has a traveler's organizer with room for the passport, credit cards, airline cards, airline tickets(I think?) a pen and it all zips so nothing falls out, I coulda used that when I went to Japan last summer!

Cat Farris Cute stuff, not my kind of thing, but someone might be into her stuff.

Danni Shinya I stood at her table in awe of her skills and her creations but walked away with nothing because I was trying to save money and also, incredibly, looking at her works, intimidated me. She does beautiful paintings and beautiful women and apparently she's done some covers for Marvel Comics of X-23. I liked the piece she did of the woman and the tiger.

DotsDotsDots Remember when you were a kid, you'd get these plastic beads and put them in a shape and use a hot iron to melt one side of it together so the other side had a picture? this guy makes them of your favorite video game character, or pokemon or character (he has a Nico Robin from One Piece! I love her so much, I wish I'd seen that at his table!) They're cute, they look like they leaped right from your old school Sega.

DuckaComic I don't remember seeing her stuff, but looking through her blogspot, she seems to have a great sense of humor and I actually just remembered, she must've been the woman with the neat rubber duckies we saw. Wow! She had cool stuff, I should take the time to look at her stuff if she comes to another APEcon.

Dusty Divine What an amazing name. Dusty Divine. And what an amazing talent. His renderings and paintings are beautiful and full of emotion and passion.

Eidolon Fine Arts I was captivated by some of the beautiful pieces they had at their table. Apparently this is a book seller or something? I don't know, but it was pretty crowded so I couldn't get in to look at anything, so I might've missed out on buying something wonderful (reading their site, they say at Comiccon 2010, they had Jean James' pieces for sale) but that's also a good sign: good stuff if the people crowded it.

Emily Martin Part of the Megamoth Studios, I didn't stop to browse the table, it was too crowded, so I scanned the art she had, liked it and grabbed a card. Not much else to say.

****Emma Sancartier Her stuff is beautiful, delicately rendered watercolors. I loved her Anglerfish couple and her firebird art, I was so tempted to splurge on the prints. She gets stars for doing anglerfish art.

Eunjung June Kim I passed her table, didn't stop to look, she was crowded, but the art on the back of her card had me picking it up and pocketing it. Her stuff is wonderful, and cheerful, I like her use of color and shadows.

Fiona Meng Interesting artstyle, and interesting in a good way. She does subjects that are both beautiful and unsettling in a way, like 'The Last Judgement' and also has some graphic novels. All I remember of her table is one girl dressed up like the woman drawn on the business card, with one pink eye.

*****Frederick the Great! The man was wearing a top hat and a nice coat, and doing free drawings of historical figures. He runs this site, about history,I haven't read it yet, I plan to though. He said he'd draw me Nathan Hale, but I had to leave early and he said he'd mail it to me. I'm still waiting for it, but if he mails it, he's got a fan for life, if he didn't, ah well, it was the thought that counted. It looks like it'll be a funny comic. EDIT: I got my Nathan Hale as well as a wonderful kind letter, he's every bit the gentleman he appears to be.

Grim Wilkins I wish I'd taken the time to look through his book, looking at his site, his art looks awesome and the title "Love Story in the Woods' sounds cool. If he's at the next APEcon I'll have to remember to check him out.

Hans Tseng Interesting art, I like his illustrations and his stuff is pretty.

Industrial Fairytale Steampunkish jewelery and art, I really admired the things they had for sale but it was out of my price range. I did love the 'Oh My Stars and Garters' cover and I like the robot stuff too. A site I'll be checking out often.

Jakc Designs Cute tees and blankets with cute images sewn on them, like ice cream cones and robots.

Jana Cook Looking at her site, I can't tell where she's going, and her stuff is kind of..generic. I'm not sure what to think of this site. But she has some funny ideas in her videos and comics.

Agent Scully redux

I used a reference I found online but I think the previous one looks more like the Agent Scully we all know.

Sketch A Day, part two

My first try at drawing Agent Scully while watching reruns of 'X-Files'.

Sketch your Life attempt one

I'm currently undertaking Michael Nobbs' Sketch Everyday challenge, and this is one of the pages. I recently found the third season of 'Bones' at Rasputins and was watching it. I adore the main character, Bones, so dang much, ADORE. So while watching ' Player Under Pressure' I made an attempt to sketch her face out, it seemed easy enough, she has very strong features (her jawline, her eyes) but it proved a lot harder than I'd hoped. Hopefully, for a first try, it looks enough like her that I can be proud. In the same episode there was a character with a distinctive and retro hairstyle, which I quickly jotted down, in the corner opposite Bones. I made an aborted try at Zach, my second favorite character, but he proved too hard to try, not without a still of him. (Oh man, The Pain in the Heart! :( ) In the very bottom, the PG is a try at designing a logo for Power Girl to go in the hole on her chest, but you know, her chest hole IS kinda her logo now huh? The rest are doodles, nothing too terribly amazing, but it feels nice to have something on paper, something to be working on instead of sitting idly watching my dvds.

Sketch Your Life-Michael Nobbs

So I recently downloaded Michael Nobbs' free ebook 'Start to Draw Your Life' (Here ) and his book gave me more ideas for what to do with this blog, hopefully this will breathe some new life here. I'll try to do what he suggests, drawing something from my life, something small and quick every day and upload it here, not quite every day, I start school again in a couple of weeks and I don't know how much time I'll have to mess with scanning and uploads and the like but I can at least try a massive weekend dump every week. I try to draw a bit every day but it usually results in sketches and detailed drawings of people and the like, not exactly super challenging stuff or stream of consciousness style sketches like Michael Nobbs is encouraging, so let's see if I can take up his challenge.

His blog, I plan to read through it and see what information I learn from it, is here.

Green Arrow II

So the last couple of days I've read the few graphic novels I have that feature Connor Hawke, Green Arrow II. And surfing the 'net for more fan stuff and pictures of him.

I think, somehow, almost without my knowing it, he became one of the top five favorite DC characters in my list.

He's the son of the original Green Arrow, a Buddhist monk, gentle, kind, polite, loving, forgiving, vegan, patient, loyal, and a hopeless romantic. On paper, he sounds perfect, too bad he's not real. Anyways, he came about in the 90s I believe, and I think he's Kyle Rayner's best friend, they did a lot of team ups in the 90s. I missed a LOT of his storylines, it wasn't until I got a copy of Green Arrow:Quiver in a library that I got to read him for the first time, so all my exposure is from the Kevin Smith-and the writers afterwards-run, so I'm hoping to find other books with him in it, he just seems like such a stand up guy, I want to read more about him.

Anyways, so basically Connor Hawke's just an interesting and unique character-not just because of his ethnicity(white, black and asian all in one package) but because he's so mild and even tempered when the rest of the cast are volatile and temperamental. He's even keeled in the face of his father's outbursts, and Mia's antics and Kyle's energy. I really look forward to finding out more about him and his storylines in the GNs of Green Arrow.

Survive Style +5

At Fanime 2010, a couple weeks ago, my friend Jenna and I got to see the Japanese film: "Survive Style +5".

It was amazing. An equal mix of drama and comedy, violence and romance, the movie has 5(six if we include the two jaded teen girls) stories that all seem separate but eventually merge and cumulate into a mind-blowing, head scratching visual feast known as "Survive Style +5"

The five stories are thus:

Story 1: Husband (played by popular actor Tadanobu Asano) and Wife (not sure who plays her, but she had such gorgeous clothes, the favorite being the one in the picture above.) Both are creative and unorthodox characters, as visualized from his car, painted with flowers, the clothes she wore, to the house they lived in, each room decorated in a 'theme' of sorts, a wonder house of different things to look at and observe. The house was almost a third character itself. But visual aspects aside, the story is this: For reasons unknown, Husband has gotten into the habit of killing Wife, who has, herself, gotten into the habit of coming back from the dead. She appears, attacks and in his self-defense, he kills her. Rinse. Repeat.

Story 2: A loving, happy family gets tickets to see a hypnotist, who hypnotizes the father into believing he is a bird, and when the hypnotist, due to the actions of the characters from Stories 4 and 5, is unable to return to his human self. The story then shows the family learning to accept their 'bird-dad'.

Story 3: Three young men have a hobby of breaking into houses and supposedly stealing things to sell, although they were only ever shown to play with the kids' toys and games. One of the three is in love with another of the three, and this story is more of the comedic variety.

Story 4: A self absorbed self-described 'genius' Ad Exec has ideas for the weirdest, lamest commercials, none of which are funny, and if we laughed, it was only because the ads were too weird to be believable. When she is insulted by the hypnotist from Story 2, she hires the characters from Story 5 to wipe him out, thus forming the connection between the characters of Stories 1-5. The least interesting, but most vital in how she causes the events to all merge and take place.

Story 5: An American assassin and his Japanese interpreter are hired by the woman from Story 4 to kill the hypnotist, causing the father from Story 2 to remain in his 'bird brain' state, as well as being hired by Husband to kill his wife. In the process of Story 5, the assassin also has a run-in with the three from Story 3, attacking one of them.

Story 6: I consider this another story, but the girls were pretty much side characters who only appeared three times, one girl getting more bandages with each appearance, and both girls having an unemotional exchange in which the bandaged girl explains that she was attacked by birds and then by a would be rapist, while the other girl continues to text.

I won't spoil the ending, but all I will say is that Bird-Dad and Husband finally meet and their respective stories overlap.

This movie was a blast to watch, visually stimulating, and a tear jerker in some places. I recommend seeing this movie.