Harley Quinn

I started this drawing ages ago and finally finished the pencils and inks and colours today,  turned out pretty good I think

Next Steps

What have I been up to since Comic Con you ask?  Well I have been doing a few things.  for starters I finished up my first comic book.  Inking and then adding all the word balloons and captions.  Do you want a physical copy?  We can work something out!

I’ve also been expanding on the idea of doing tattoos that I learned about at Comic Con.  I am now on a few sites with art up, just waiting for site approval.  Another is createmytattoo.com which mainly runs contests for artists to submit for I have one on there with 4 stars – quite a few days left to go in the contest though.

And I have put up a few of my own pieces of art to try to sell, dunno how well that will go.  But Hey, if you want a drawing of someone I’ll do it and mail it to you!

I’ve also hung up all my art from Comic Con, I have the pieces by Francis Manapul and Ken Lashly appraised by a comic shop, the guy there said if he was to sell them in his shop he’d be looking for around $900 for all three pieces! I should become an art collector!

Toronto Comic- Con Day 3

Read The first entry here!

Read Part II here!

The third day at comic con I knew then what to expect and had a plan of what I wanted to accomplish for the day.  The first thing I did was head down to the showroom floor about a half hour earlier than on the Saturday because I knew I wanted to get over to Ken Lashley’s table a bit earlier to get him to do another drawing for me.  He had mentioned on the Saturday that he might not have been someone’s favourite artist on the first day, but by the end he would be.  I have to say he was right! Ken was a really awesome guy with great stories and a really friendly way of being with the people that came to his table.  As well on top of all that he is a great artist.

Once I had put in my request I toured the floor a bit more and hmmm and hawed over what else to buy.  I ended up picking up and ArtFX statue of The Flash since I couldn’t find any of the justice league figures of him.  It’s really cool!

From there it was off to a couple more sketch duels.  I arrived early and just got out my drawing paper and got working on a picture of Green Lantern.  If I had thought ahead a bit more I would have got a commission of him instead of Batgirl, but I really liked the way that guy drew girls so, I’m happy with my decision.  Anyways, I got working on that and was asked again if it was a commission for someone!  I’m still a bit blown away that people thought that much of my art that they expected I was getting paid for it.

The first duel was between David Finch and Johnny D.,  both guys were quite entertaining and they had to draw Beast.  Two very different styles and so I wouldn’t really say one is ‘better’ than the other, they are just different but cool.  Especially when you consider the amount of time they work with which by the time they are introduced, get suggestions, pick a subject and then finish up early enough to raffle the pieces off is only about 45 minutes maybe.

Johnny D.’s Beast

David Finch’s Beast

 

The second duel was supposed to feature Francis Manapul, but he had other commitments before they told him he was supposed to be doing the panel.  The MC phones another artist and got him to run up and take his place.  They drew Black Panther. I would tell you who the artists were, but it is actually neither of the guys on the show program and I forget their names now.  One was Something Gorham.

 

Again their answers to questions were entertaining and insightful as to where to go and what to work on to get into the industry. 

After that duel was over I planned on attending a panel about how to do comic book covers but it was cancelled.  So I headed back down to pick up my Wonder Woman drawing and generally hunt around for other cool stuff.  I picked up a Wonder Woman figure which completed my set of the basic Justice League group.  Batman, Superman Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman.

Once I had picked that up it was back to the main lobby of the convention centre to find Amber and catch the GO train back toward home. On the way I again passed a whole bunch of great cosplayers and so I snapped their pictures too!

All in all it was a great experience and I met some really awesome people and had my eyes opened up a bit more as to way to do things and ideas about how to actually do something with the art I create. Ken and Francis were amazing people and it was awesome to get to know them a bit more as they created art just for me (and other people!)

Toronto Comic Con 2014–Day 2

Read the first entry here!!

Saturday I was at the Con by myself and Amber took to the streets of Toronto to do some shopping and general touring around.

The first thing I did Saturday morning was head directly to Francis Manapul’s table (new Detective Comics artist).  He had not arrived yet and so next door to him was Ken Lashley.  I got engrossed watching him draw Cyclops blasting Wolverine on a blank X-men comic cover. While watching that he and I and a few of the other guys got to chatting about how he got started and schooling for art and what movies he and we all liked.  At first it was kind of a geek-out meet the creator type of experience and eventually was just conversation that you’d end up having with any of your friends really.  It also turned out that Ken, amazing guy that he is, simply took donations for the work he created for the fans.  No set prices, just sort of a what would you like to pay and then art created, or ask for something and the pay what you can afford.

Once I had watched Ken create that cover, and then a quick Flash headshot for another guy I asked him to do me a Superman, and since it was during about the 2nd hour of watching him work and just chatting I forgot to take progress pictures.

 

 

Once interesting thing that came up, especially with him mentioning that he practically gives away things was some of the price gouging that goes on by some artists at conventions.  For example, Tony Moore, an artist on The Walking Dead was charging $40 for signed, used, shotgun shells!  Ridiculous.

From there I went up to see a couple more sketch duels.  On the way there I ran into a pretty sexy Green Lantern!

The first duel was between Tyler Kirkham and Kevin Maguire and they drew Venom.  Maguire didn’t know what venom even looked like and so it was kind of a run away for Kirkham.  During the duel, since there is actually not much to see except on the updates of progress I tried my hand at drawing what those guys were drawing.

It was during that duel that the guy beside me, who was checking out my work asked me which company I worked for! I was a bit stunned by that.  and simply replied ‘Oh, no-one, I just draw as a hobby’.

The two drawings I was working on were Red Robin when the guy asked that question, and then I decided to try my hand at Venom since that is what was going on with the duel.

The second duel actually featured the aforementioned Ken Lashley vs Tony Moore, and while art is subjective, I think that Ken’s drawing was far superior! They were challenged to draw Rocket Raccoon and Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Tony Moore’s finished product

Ken Lashley’s finished product

From here I headed back to the show floor and happened to be walking by Francis’ table just as he came out and set up his stuff.  I asked him if he could sign my Flash Vol 1 and he was happy to do that and then I asked if he could do a Batman commission for me and he said ‘yeah sure’ and promptly got to work.  I was excited to see it happen really since he works in water colours which is quite unique.

 

Mid way through working on my commission YTV came over and interrupted the work on that for a segment that had him create a thing what was with the host and whatever props got pulled out of a bag.  While I wasn’t all that thrilled that the work he was doing for me that I was paying for just pushed aside for that, is was pretty cool to watch that too.

 

He got back to work on my Batman and it was interesting again to chat with him while he did that work about how he does his work and get a few details on his run with Detective and a bit of a general outline of what the stories are going to involve.  Once his work of my piece was done he said I should let it dry before I do anything with it. 

I think the finished piece was totally worth the wait, and the cost.  It was cool to see it be made, to chat with Francis like he was just my pal and all that.  Awesome!

 

So I stuck around while he worked on a drawing of the Flash on the cover of a guy’s sketchbook.  This was also very interesting since it was a colour picture and I got to see how he built that up.

That was the end of the show for me on Saturday. However on the way back to the hotel I did run across a whole bunch of pretty awesome cosplayers!

Check back tomorrow for part III

Toronto Comic Con 2014–Day 1

I just got to spend the entire weekend at Toronto Comic-Con!  It was my first Comic Convention experience, but thankfully not my first experience of this type of event since I went to Fan Expo last August, but that was just for one day.

It was pretty amazing over all and I got a whole whack of cool stuff and had some great chats with a ton of creators who were there selling and giving away their art.  I even got asked some pretty cool questions, but I’ll come back to that later.

I’ll space out the experiences for you over the next few days so that it’s not too much at once.

Amber and I headed down to Toronto on Friday taking the GO Train to avoid traffic and having to drive in downtown Toronto which right around the hotel and convention centre is all torn up with construction.

I had a few specific goals with the trip, especially once I learned that Francis Manapul was going to be there.  So basically my only solid goals were to get some original art of Batman from Francis since he is the new artist on Detective Comics and a Flash figure of some sort.

The line up on Friday was much shorter than the Fan Expo one was on a Saturday Morning which was great! We pretty much walked right into the show aside from the lead time of about 30 minutes we had arriving at the venue.  First things first we headed to Francis’ table, but he was not there.  Later once I was able to check my Twitter (@chrispy47) I learned that he was only going to be there on the Saturday and Sunday.  Amber and I Trawled Artist Alley and she actually bought a print of Batman and Catwoman!  I was very surprised at that!

I bought a little Catwoman sketch for $5 right away too, something to break the spending ice.

I was struck again just by the overwhelmingness of everything there is to see, I always find it fascinating to gawk at other people’s art and see what they are passionate about.  At the booth for 1,000,000 Comics we finally found the expansion to our DC comics deck building game and so we picked that up as well.  From there it was on to the first sketch duel of the Con.

It was cool to be there for that.  The host just polled the audience for ideas and asked the artists what tickled their fancy.  Vampire Batman was suggested and that is what was chosen.  Unfortunately they only had one ELMO an so we couldn’t see what the drawings where like as they were created, but just periodic updates throughout.  At the end of the duel there is a draw for the art and I didn’t win. Boo.

Following that was Comic Book Trivia, and while most of the questions were out of my range it was asked Which Toronto Based creator worked on the New 52 run of  The Flash, which I knew instantly was Francis Manapul and I got myself a signed Alex Ross San Diego Comic Con sketchbook.  Vey cool!

That was pretty much it for Friday night.

Come back tomorrow and read about the much more exciting Day 2!

And Now Day 3 as well!

Don’t miss a chance tomorrow to WIN a piece of the Con that you can’t get anywhere else!  How?  Just check back tomorrow and see!!