So… I’ve been off the grid for a couple of weeks. I’ve got a new comic up today posted in a completely different style. Time for some stories? I think yes.

Wednesday

Weather delays caused a 4 hour delay to my flight. Not the best way to start a trip but I made the best of it.

That desk they have for customer service had a line going back to the wall with angry people. I didn’t know what the line was actually for. So I got in it. I waited 40 minutes of listening to people complaining at how incompetent airline employees are and how ridiculous it is that they can’t get the planes off the ground. All the while biting my tongue to keep me from biting theirs.

I finally get to the front of the line and they call me forward. They ask me if I have a question. I say ‘no’. They ask if they can help with anything. I say ‘nah, I’m cool’. I explain I has nothing better to do so I saw the line and got in line. They were amused. I ended up making a coffee run for them. It was a nifty little scene.

The day wrapped up after I got on the flight. I had a stop in Utah and met a great couple of people named Jack and Lisa. Really nice. Very cool. Had some good chats with them on the way to San Diego.

Thursday

Landed in SD very early Thursday morning. With no place to go, no one to pick me up and no place to stay I did what I do best… I improvised. I hopped a cab to the nearest hotel that I was certain would be on the con shuttle bus routes. Made friends with the desk, fabricated a soft version of a sob story and they had no problem with me lounging in the lobby. Though the weather was nice so I spent a decent amount of time out in front.

this was the little guy who kept me company. i named him jacob.

So I hung out and waited for coffee. Ran into the Lazy Horde crew in the lobby and hitched a ride with them. We got there around 7am I think. They had badges already so I had to take the long way in while they got to hop ahead.

I finally got in around 9am and did what an genius level intellect with a specialty in tactical awareness would do in a new place they’ll need to navigate for days. I walked around. Absorbing key factors, construction logic, traffic flow, area relationships. Basically absorbing and calculating so I’d be able to travel efficiently from point to point.

See when I was planning this trip I made lists of panels and events. My scedule was wired tight. From 1-2 do x. then run over to the 2 panel of y. When that ends at 3 go to the z panel from 3 - 4. However I didn’t take into consideration how many people would be going to each of these. Which would be fine if not for the fact that the panels were not being visited exclusively by people looking to learn. A lot of the times they were just fans of one of the speakers and just wanted to sit there making googlee eyes while some of us were getting learned. So that was sort of lame. Basically I learned very quickly that showing up at least 30 minutes early for everything was a requisite factor for attendance.

So I hit the review area and met up with Lauren and Matt. Had my first portfolio review with Wizards of the Coast. They liked my stuff but with my lack of what they call “High Fantasy” (dragons, elves, monsters, etc.) they didn’t have much for me in terms of critique or offers off the cuff but she gave me direct contact info in case i ever get around to painting a dragon or two. Not bad for my first review.

Lauren and Matt

I spent the rest of the day hitting booths. Making friend. Getting submission guidelines. Getting feedback on my work and pitch. All with no sleep. Everything I brought on the plane in tow.

Needless to say by the end of day one… I was burnt out. I really wanted to attend the BOOM! event that night and was invited by my friend Jaqui who works in their marketing department. Alas… my friends Lauren and Matt don’t really throw down. We ended up going for Italian in downtown that night and then crashing hard.

Friday

We got in around 8:30a. I made a line for the grocery store and stocked up on food for the weekend so I wouldn’t have to suffer another Pretzel Dog.

Went through a volley of portfolio reviews all for my sequential pencil work this time. The portfolio included the first 4 pages of the comic I wrote plus the character studies and some digital paintings for my coloring skills. There were a LOT of people waiting for reviews Friday though.

this is only looking right. there was an equal swarm to the left.

I quickly came to the conclusion (and by quickly I mean the second I handed the guy from QEW my port and he opened it and I realised how he would view what he was seeing) that I shouldn’t have done the first 4 pages. I should’ve done pages 4 - 7. Pages 1 - 3 are very minimal because they’re a white room. Not the best display of my sequential imaging skills or my pencil work. Page 4 is far more dynamic of a page with a very complex camera progression that really shows off my spatial awareness as you can see below.

page2

page3

page1

page4

However despite my flawed judgment in choice of presentation material everyone had pretty much the same response to my pencil work. It’s good, but I need more practice. However once I told them that I’ve only been working in this style for about a month and before this I was doing comic strips and digital paintings exclusively… they were all far more impressed. A lot of them want to talk to me further about my coloring. A couple want to talk to me more about my script. Everyone wants to see my pencil work in a few months once I’ve settled in on my style. All in all I was very well received and left with some good contacts.

The rest of Friday was spent hitting a couple of panels, hitting a bar, then getting dinner with Matt, Lauren and Jason. Jason very generously picked up the tab which was unnecessarily cool of him.

Lauren, Matt and Jason

I also ran into the Lazy Horde crew at dinner and had some chit chat with them about current plans. I’ve spent so little time around other creative types in this type of free form environment. It was exhilarating. The flow of ideas and information. The speed of concept evolution. Amazing.

That’s about it for the first few days. Check back in later for the rest of the weekend. :-)