Fan Expo 2013 postgame

Exhausted and fighting off a little bit of con crud.  Certainly worth it for seeing and talking with all the great fans and fellow pros you only get to see at conventions.

The change in venue made things less crowded and overheated, though the lighting was rather abysmal in my area.  Seemed to be an overall improvement for all involved, though.

Managed to forget to take pics of some of the con sketches (again).

~R

Elven Wizards

I was working on some oil paintings for a charity art show/party/event/thing called Insert Adventure Here, but that ended disastrously as I left the paintings out to dry in the sun and didn't notice when a storm blew in. . . .

I buckled down and did four replacement drawings, essentially over night. Above is the second of them - -directly inspired by the show name and how the funds were being raised for Sick Kids Hospital.

coloured pencil on 11x22" watercolor paper

~R

Ottawa 2013

Had a blast last weekend at the Ottawa Comic Con last weekend.  Here's a few sketches from the show.  The new smart phone takes pretty good pictures. Actually started a commission just before the show ended, got home, decided I can do better and restarted it. I'll share that later on.

Did get a delayed bout of con crud/flu, though I seem to be recovering already.  Steve Niles's post-con cough turned out to be bronchitis, so send him good vibes for a speedy recovery.

Particularly enjoyed the company of Dale Keown, George Perez, Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith (who gave me a wicked Lovecraft print!), Arthur Suydam, and the great folks from Paradise Comics of Toronto (who treated me to a most excellent steak dinner Saturday night).

Would certain say yes to a return visit to this convention!

~Richard

Con Sketches

I'd brought my camera to this past weekend's comic con and took pictures of a few of the sketches I did.  I'm still quite horrible about remembering to do this, so several got away undocumented.

~R

Sketches -- Wasted Time

Wasted an afternoon doing these.

Don't ask, it would give me the opening to complain.

Wee Little Moleskine

So, with so many of my friends and acquaintences using and suggesting that Moleskine sketchbooks were something special (with a few notable exceptions), I decided to get a couple; a pocket-sized one and the larger one. I'm finishing off another 8.5x11" hardcover one, so I decided to put off trying the larger one till after, but just had to start doing something with the pocket one.

Well, right off, the elastic band to close the book, the bookmark ribbon and rear endpaper pocket are neat to have, but haven't been perks yet. The paper is weirdly thick; like 1-ply smooth cream-coloured bristol board. Now, I like drawing on smooth bristol, so this is a plus.
Decided the book would be entirely goofball stuff out of my head, thus Tubby Peepers shows up on the "address and reward" page. In a moment of paranoia I Pshopped the address and reward out. . . .

The strange thing about the book, to me anyway, is that I never draw on small paper. I often doodle a fair bit and some of those doodles are quite small, but it's always on 8.5x11" paper or larger, so getting a feel for this tiny book is job #1, I guess.

Maybe because somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking about how this little book is probably has the highest price to drawing surface ratio of any sketchbook I've owned, I find myself drawing in stuff to fill the pages. Not an onerous task when the pages are 3x5", but it's an odd shift from how I work with my typical books. Just pencil so far, though I've been told that ink goes wonderfully on these pages.
~R