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Hey everybody,
I attended the famous Comic Con of San Diego for the first time this year...well, I went a couple of years ago, but I'm not counting that because I was only there for about an hour just before it was ending. Anyway, I've been hearing about it forever and I've gone back and forth on whether or not I think it would be worth my while to go. I decided to go ahead and spend a day scoping things out there. Basically, I was looking around to see if there is a market for my artwork there. I also got my portfolio reviewed by a couple of people. After attending, my conclusion is...well, I'm still not really sure. I definitely think that my stuff doesn't fit with a large percentage of the work there (high fantasy and sci-fi), but there was some cool stuff there that is close to what I do. So I think I should keep researching that market and keep myself open to it.
As for how the experience was apart from my "recon" work, it was a fun place to check out. The highlight was getting to watch a demo by one of my favorite illustrators, Gregory Manchess. He was at the Donato Arts booth. It was so cool to watch him paint for about an hour. I was pretty close. He did a painting of Hellboy that looked very cool. It was in oil and he was just very steady and confident in his method. Cool.
I also got to see one of my favorite art instructors, Marshall Vandruff, there. He did a drawing seminar for kids on how to draw monsters, as well as hung out at the booth he shared with the art group he's with. It's called Carbon Canyon Studios and it's he and awesome fantasy artists, Justin Sweet, Vance Kovacs, and John Dickinson. It was cool to catch up with him a little.
Overall, it was really intimidating to see the high level of talent at the conference, even if most of it is not necessarily the kind of stuff that I do. I really feel motivated to keep pushing myself in my artwork and to keep painting and drawing more, more, more!
Over last weekend I was able to get this one done:) Once the face finally started working for me, it all finished up fine. Not sure what to call it since it's not from a real story. I'd love any suggestions. This one is horizontal so it could be a wraparound cover (did I already explain that?) Now I'm looking forward to getting going on the next one. It's only in the thumbnailing stage right now though.
And here's the color rough I painted in Photoshop before I got going on the actual painting which is in acrylic and currently in progress. I'm trying to keep a moody/stormy kind of atmosphere with this one.
Here is the drawing for the next cover painting I'm working on. I decided to go ahead and do a horizontal format make it a wrap-around book cover. The trick will be making the boy look like the same boy from the other picture. I'm glad to get a chance to put another tree in this picture since I love drawing trees :) The tree is from my head, but the boy I drew after shooting some reference photos of the same boy, as well as a few of myself to try and get the body position how I wanted it:)
