MY FIRST DRAGON CON

My first Dragon Con experience was amazing. Made new friends, sold an original painting and a bunch of prints. Won 3 awards for my work during the art show awards ceremony saturday night. The competition was fierce. With so many pros all in the same room I had no expectations that I would win anything. When my name was called I was floored. I took home awards for "Best Alien", "Best Horror", and 3rd place in the overall art show. Congratulations to Matt Stawicki, Peter Mohrbacher, and Annie Stegg for their wins. Thanks to the jury and all the dragon con attendees that voted for me. After the ceremony it occurred to me that I had not won anything since honor roll in high school.

I have been working on a personal project for a few years now that I had only shown once before last year at CTN Animation Expo. I brought some of that art with me to test the waters with a much larger audience and the response was great. My little robot designs were by far the best selling item I had to offer. What started out as some quick designs done for fun now adorn the walls of many homes, schools and recreation rooms in churches. Artists can never really know what attendees will respond to and what they will ignore, so I'm happy that my offerings went over well. I also didn't come to the con with the expectation of selling anything. I mainly wanted to just share what I do and let 60,000+ people know I exist. That helped keep my spirits high throughout the show.

At Dragon Con, all the attending artists were asked to contribute a sketch to an artboard that would be auctioned off. Here I am next to Don Maitz behind me. Most of the board was all dragon art so I did my best to do a dragon too but my hand sketched a vomiting alien instead. This was a lot of fun. I made vomit sounds and giggled as I worked. I may have to turn this into a full painting. Hmmm.

During the con I was asked to sketch in or sign some sketchbooks.  This is what one guy got.  My buddy KUSH, silently longing for what it will never have.

The overall experience was inspiring. Getting the chance to share and speak with other working professionals who don't leave the studio too often was so satisfying. I'm already excited for next year and am pumped to start a bunch of new personal paintings and commissions to bring.

Special thanks to friends that convinced me to leave to house and join the art community. This has been a blast. Now on to the NEW YORK COMIC CON!!!!