Critiques & Portfolio Reviews

Because I'm asked to review people's work at conventions, I have some thoughts on portfolio reviews and critiques I'd like to share as we head into the 2014 convention season. Giving or receiving critiques can be hard and when I was first attending conventions as a professional, I wasn't prepared when the portfolios started opening and young artists were asking for my opinion. I'd had my share of very negative and very positive critiques in college and of course, the most constructive were the ones that were a mix: of both: honest but fair. So over the years, I've developed my method and thought process for how I give a critique.

I start by quietly looking through the entire portfolio in one pass while not engaging the artist much at all. Besides getting an overall impression of the work, I'm also looking for what I see as the stronger and weaker pieces in the portfolio. This way, I can talk to the artists in relative terms about the pieces that need improving by comparing them to their more solid work. I could hold everyone to some absolute high standard, but ultimately, I think the best way to encourage someone and show their their faults without discouraging them, is to point out how techniques they've already applied to some work, could be used to improve all their work.

I developed this approach because of my experience in college being frustrated with some 300 & 400 level professors. Obviously when entering an art program the first few years of classes are to teach you (or re-teach you) the basics and for professors to "break" you of your bad artistic habits, to remold you and open your eyes and get you out of your comfort zone. But by the time you are a junior or senior in a college art program, I felt the professors should stop trying to break you, and focus on your work, and figuring out with you how to make what you are already doing better.

This is what I strive to do with every review. Not to break them or tell them they need to draw like artist X or shake off what makes them unique. I want to congratulate them on what is working and how to make what they already do better. We talk about contour line, line weight, inking techniques, creating greys, texture, style influences, subjects, and mood. I tailor the advice to the work in the portfolio. Sometimes my comments are about still needing to focus on basics, or perspective or anatomy...but other times, I'm getting in and nit-picking details about storytelling or line weights. As the conversation is ending, I usually give the artist some exercises I think will lead them in the direction they want to go..and those assignments can vary from "draw basic shapes and build up forms from them" to "start making comics"

There is also something to be said for how to prepare a portfolio and how to receive a critique.

A portfolio should contain a limited selection of your work showcasing the best you have to offer.
It should have a focus that gives the reviewer a sense of your voice as an artist. There is some merit in showing a wide range of all the varied styles, techniques, and mediums you can use, but ultimately, I find this can lead to too wide a variety of artistic voice that doesn't tell me who you are. It's ok to mix in some color and inks, and pencils, but a portfolio shouldn't be a Swiss-army knife of artistic deeds. Show the type of work you want to do: spot illustrations, comic storytelling, children's book illustrations, whatever the case is. And this should all be your best work to-date.

The best way to receive a review is to listen. Too often I hear the artist who is asking for an opinion, jumping in to self-deprecate, make excuses, or add too much background information. A reviewer can't give you their thoughts and suggestions if you are talking. That's not to say I conduct my reviews being the only one who talks. I ask questions, find out why some pieces were handled certain ways, and try to engage the artist as much as possible. It's totally fine if you disagree with what I or any other reviewer is saying (we may be very wrong about your work), but the only way you really find out if we have anything worth taking to heart is to listen.

So with all of that in mind, I wish you the best of luck when developing and showing a portfolio. I hope the review leads to you growing and improving as an artist or to getting hired for the work you want to do.

2014 Appearances:

MSU Comics Forum: February 22

Emerald City Comic Con: March 28-30

C2E2: April 25-27

Motor City Comic Con: May 16-18

Comicpalooza: May 23-25

Phoenix Comic Con: June 5-8

Heroes Con: June 20-22

San Diego Comic Con: July 23-27

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12

Other People's Characters Part II:

*DIRECT LINK FOR PART I OF THIS POST*

Last week I addressed finding a creative voice when working with other people’s character's specifically licensed characters. This week, I want to touch on what I said was a different category of work, doing pieces for sole creators and or friends. This will again give insight to my thoughts for long-time readers, and offer up a look at perhaps unseen artwork by new blog readers.While some of the message from last week's blogpost rings true here also, there are a few key differences. Left: My piece for Katie Cook's Gronk where I focused on rendering Harli & Kitty being portrayed as real animals while keeping as true to Katie's design of Gronk & Kitteh as possible.

The first being that I'm generally being asked to contribute to do something for a creator I have a personal relationship with. This means the request is coming from a place of mutual artistic respect. I admire their work, they enjoy mine. So the expectation on their end is that I will do something in my own style, in a way that looks like what they have already seen and enjoy about my work. It also means that I will do something that honors their property is a way that is nothing but respectful.
Right: My piece for Jeremy Bastian's Cursed Pirate Girl didn't come together for me until I talked to him about getting the right balance of distorted anatomy and my flavor of illustration. Knowing Jeremy so well helped give me the freedom to do this piece that way.

Unlike the pieces from last week where the characters have been owned by multiple companies and have been portrayed in multiple mediums by several different creative teams, these characters and properties are owned by individuals, and they only have one incarnation. There aren't eras to sort through to amalgamate into one version...there is only their work as the reference and your interpretation.
Left: Subtle changes or wardrobe changes can occur between series, so there may need to be some creative choice making over what versions of the characters to show. For Sean Wang's Runners, I knew the piece was to coincide with the 2nd arc taking place on a wintry planet...but I had to balance his character designs with the way I render the textures and materials in question: rocks, snow, alien skin, wrinkles  fur cloaks, quilted parkas etc.

Like I said in last week's post what I decide to focus on for the piece or what I omit is a way of keeping a creative voice while doing this type of work. I try to work with the creator to pick a character or subject from their series that works well with my skill set and perhaps avoid the parts of their book I may not naturally pay homage to as well. I then focus on the parts of that character I think my sensibilities could render well using my style of framing, texture, and line. Right: With Shane Michael-Vidaurri's IRON book, he'd assigned me the tiger character, so that was locked in for me, but then I thought about what it is that makes Shane's work special and original. Shane's peppers his book with inset panels featuring subtle moments like landscapes or branches, or leaves. And I borrowed his palate as well

Figuring out what the tone of a piece should be is also a way to keep a creative voice. Should it be humorous, action packed, subtle, introspective? Many creators run the gambit of emotional range in their books. And choosing just one mood can be tough when trying to sum up the feel of that book. Left: With the piece I did for Stan Sakai and his book Usagi Yojimbo, I wanted to show Usagi as a well rounded character. Using the seasonal framework allowed me to do four smaller pieces that together become my version of him. In sprint he's lighthearted and doing something as enjoyable as flying a kite. In summer, he's busy training hard. For fall, I featured the beauty of performing a mundane task, and in Winter he's solemnly standing guard in the cold conditions. I tried to bring to the table a printmaker's voice and also use historical Japanese iconography in each season: the cherry blossoms, the koi fish, the cooking pot, the bridge and hat, as well as the kanji for each season.

Every pinup and cover should feel like it's telling some story in one image, but there is a bigger creative weight on storytelling with interior pages. To honor the sense of storytelling and subject when writing guest material can be as much of a balancing act as just doing art, if not moreso. Right: In my guest strip for Kark Kerchl's Abominable Charles Christopher, I had to think of something that fit into his northern wilds that would be amusing...and I also wanted to include his main character (who rarely interacts with the other animal characters. Karl does a great job of giving a sense of society and perspective to his ACC characters, there is a serious tone in the way the characters think about life. That was my jumping off point for this. How would snails see their progress in the world....then I abstracted it with the chess concept as a reveal for the joke.

The way the image will be used can also be a method of introducing creativity and a unique voice to an existing property. Left: For the folks over at Transylvania Televison, I did a design for their tee-shirt. They'd used a piece of mine before on a shirt, but It felt more like an illustration placed on a shirt as opposed to a tee-shirt design. This image needed to have a design element so the borders of the image made sense on a shirt...there is no background or horizon line to ground a standing character. Having LeShock dissolve into bats gave enough design strength and also reinforced the monster-movie tone of the show. Otherwise I took all the Muppet cover lessons and applied them here to a puppet character making the coffin and clothing as textured and real as I could and play up the shapes and colors of the puppet himself.


All of the above examples were pieces I was asked to do. But there have been times where, just for fun, and as a fan, I've decided to do artwork as an unsolicited gift. Right: This piece for Kory Bing's Skin Deep, was a way for me to have fun drawing all her cool character designs while trying to match the tone of her story and work. I deviated a bit more with the interpretations of the characters than I normally would, I just wanted to have fun and play with the characters. I still paid homage to Kory's work by staying very true to the costumes and the details of her characters. Kory had been playing with using stock patterns as backgrounds in her work at the time, so I used that as a way to fill up the space and give the piece some Skin Deep authenticity.

Watercolor Wednesday:
Last week's watercolors were all of mushrooms. After painting the first piece, and thinking it would be fun to do another, I wondered "what will be an easy way to tell them apart for the purposes of labeling for the store & blog?"  The answer I came up with was to paint a different quantity in each piece and name them accordingly. Another note, on the trio, I used rubber cement to mask out the dots on the mushroom cap, something I don't tend to do with these Watercolor Wednesday pieces.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
*more 2013 dates coming*

Other People's Characters Part I

A Creative Voice with Licensed Characters:

Today’s blogpost topic comes from a fan who asked: “How do you find your POV/voice as an artist when using licensed properties?” This is an interesting question, partly because I didn't have an answer spring to mind when first asked. Another reason was that while I explored an answer, this post would give new readers a look at some of my licensed character cover work. These pieces were all done as work-for-hire and have been published as either covers, posters, trading cards, or as pin-ups in hardcover collections.

Working with a licensed property means serving a few masters. The publisher has licensed the rights from a rights holder...so in the case of Fraggle Rock, Archaia have the rights to do the comics granted to them by the Henson Company who own the characters. There is editorial at the publisher level, but also at the rights holder level...and sometimes there are some other folks along the way who get a say. So while you have been hired to do original work, hopefully because of the style of work you do in mind, you must stay within the realm of what the publisher and rights holders have in mind.

My first thought about keeping your own voice is that I'm mindful of the work I take on. Some of that boils down to what I'm offered...but I've also said no to a few cover gigs because I knew my style wasn't going to jive well with their established aesthetic and that it would be more work than I wanted to take on to adapt to that. The things I've done are all things I'm genuinely a fan of and fit well with my work. Henson properties, the Muppets, and TMNT are clearly in my wheelhouse...superheroes and sexy ladies aren't. So right there I've started on a path of keeping my creative voice with job selection. Having the excitement of getting to work on something you've long admired also gets your brain thinking about how to sum up that love in a single image that works for what everyone on the publishing end & owners want, but also keeps your inner fanboy excited.

Each project and property is a bit different, and not just because of the publishing team and approval process, but because of the subject matter & tone. I look at each one and think of what I like about that property and how I can embrace that, especially if the property has been around long enough to have several incarnations of it exist. For the Muppet covers, I really loved how real the characters felt even though you knew they were puppets. You could see the materials they were made of, they didn't blink or move their eyes, but they felt like real characters. I wanted to draw the Muppets as though I were drawing the puppets, with all the limitations the puppets had, but still make them believable as characters.

For something like the Turtles, which have been reinvented through movies, animation, games, multiple comic series, and by lots of talented people, I wanted to hone in on the grittiness of the original Eastman & Laird run. I was never a fan of many of the other versions of the Turtles, but I know that most of the TMNT fans were fans of some other version of them. So I did my best to get inspiration from my favorite incarnation, but while never being disrespectful of any of the others. Figuring out how you are going to take on something, what to emphasize and what not to is a big part of the battle and inherently is a method of bringing a voice to the property.

I then try to bring what it is I do with my work naturally to exemplify what I like about each property. I tend to focus on texture with my inks, so on the Muppets or Fraggles that meant trying to render the fleece and fur and feathers and foam that the characters were made of. In other properties the texture worked its way into the background. With Mouse Guard I try and make the locations and backgrounds as convincing as possible to help ground the premise of walking, talking, sword-wielding mice. The more detail and realism I add to the environments of the Turtles, the Muppets, the Dark Crystal characters, or The Storyteller the more set in their time and location they become, and ultimately the more real as a single-image story.

I've had good and bad luck with approvals and going through the steps of showing the stages of work to catch any problems. Some pieces slide through with no trouble at every stage, others get nitpicked along the way...and what gets called out and what doesn't can seem arbitrary at times. My worst approval process was with the Muppets & Boom. The Boom editors were always supportive of me, but Disney wouldn't look at my covers until they were pretty far along (ie: when it's painful to make a change because it's almost done now). Disney would also keep Boom on the line for script approval and then make changes late in the game. Changes like swapping out characters for roles...which affected finished covers multiple times. Overall the Muppet covers were fun and rewarding to do, I just learned how to deal with that approval process while still doing the best work I could within their system. The notes Pixar sent over for the Brave poster from Mondo were some of the best notes I've ever gotten. My initial reaction was "oh no, they want me to change things", but after doing a mock-up of what they wanted I could see instantly that it improved the piece so much, it would be artistically negligent to not make the alterations.

So to sum up, being selective of the properties to work on, honoring what it is you enjoy or feel those properties do well, and then bringing your skill set to the table to show off those characters as best as you can while still playing withn the rules of approvals the publishers and property owners set-up is my answer.
I didn't include examples of work I've done for Usagi Yojimbo, Cursed Pirate Girl, or the Abominable Charles Christopher in this post. That's because unlike the pieces I've shown today, they are owned by a single creator and therefore is a slightly different process of making it and making them happy. Next week I'll focus on those. *DIRECT LINK FOR PART II OF THIS POST*

To read more about some of these covers and the process behind them here's a list of links:
-Fraggle Rock cover
-TMNT Leonardo cover
-Jim Henson's The Storyteller pinup
-Brave poster for Mondo
-TMNT Splinter cover

Watercolor Wednesday: 
I got into a D&D beastie style mood when doing last week watercolors. First up is a half-orc. I imagine that he fancies himself an intellectual and perhaps a decent spell-caster. In my high-school roleplaying group we had a paladin that died. We then used several methods in the game to resurrect reincarnate him...but it was with mixed results....he came back as a goblin. A heated debate started about if he could still use his paladin abilities (as in those days only humans could be paladin. My main gripe was in the game...where my thief had to surrender my hat of disguise so our goblin-paladin could go into towns.

Second up is some kind of a goblin...I guess I spent my goblin story above while showing the half-orc painting. While painting this goblin I thought of something the Henson creature shop might have made if doing a D&D fantasy style movie. Not too grotesque...but still un-human.

The last of last week's paintings started as a rushed and quick sketch that became a rather muddy painting. It's a cockatrice...which is a mythical beast which comes into being when a chicken's egg is hatched by a snake. I feel I saved this painting with the action in the background.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
*more 2013 dates coming*

Genres & Diversity of Audience in Comics 

-or- A Comic for Everyone:

I find myself delivering the same message at 80% of the panels I speak on at conventions. I figured it bears repeating here: Comics are a means of telling a story as valid as film, television, prose, poetry, and theater. Any type of story is fair game in comics and can be told with sequential imagery...any genre, any topic, which also means, any audience can be addressed. Comics are not simply superheroes. While the industry could benefit from having a more diverse offering of material, as it stands right now, there is a comic for any and every person willing to try comics. Male, female, very old, very young, any race, creed, or interest, there is a book on the market today for them.

Sequential stories can cover Comedy, Horror, Westerns, Sci-Fi, Adaptations, Talking Animals, Popular Characters, Autobiographical, Historic Fiction, Non-fiction, Fantasy, Romance...basically there is a comic to cover all the any genres or shelves in a bookstore or video store (though that reference is going to go the way of the dodo in a matter of years). I cobbled together this post from slides I've used at a few library/school/educator talks I've done. I limited myself to only three titles per-subject and tried to make sure I had at least read if not also own the material.

It is by no means a complete list of book types or good material within that category...It's more of a 'best of' from my bookshelves. Also note that the categories are broad...'romance' doesn't need to mean 'trashy romance'...just a story about relationships...'horror' can also be 'suspense'..etc. But instead of belaboring the explanations...here are the titles:

Fantasy:

Mouse Guard, Bone, Cursed Pirate Girl

Comedy:

Muppet Show, Dork Tower, Jeremy

Horror:

Nocturnals, Hellboy, Locke & Key

Historical Fiction:

300, Usagi Yojimbo, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Kids:

Owly, Tiny Titans, Korgi

Adventure:

The Crogan Series, Little Nemo, Rex Steele

Pulp:

The Rocketeer, Sin City, Blacksad

Romance:

Miki Falls, Blankets, Strangers in Paradise

Non-Fiction:

Treasury of Victorian Murder series, Maus, Bone Sharps, Cowboys, & Thunder Lizards

Sci-Fi:

Runners, Space Girl, Robotika

Adaptations:

Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, The Oz Books, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Webcomics*

Lackadaisy, Abominable Charles Christopher, Gronk

*I used examples of webcomics where the material is still free to view online, but the creators have published quality collections of the comics which makes it easier to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon or loan to a friend.

I encourage you to look through these suggestions and links and try something new you have never tried before. And if you see something you already know and enjoy, suggest it (or lend it) to a friend or relative who isn't a comic reader, but may be interested in the subject matter or genre of the book. Everyone loves stories, so everyone should love comics.

Watercolor Wednesday: 
Last week I posted three watercolors for sale. I enjoy drawing dragons and thought they'd make for good Watercolor Wednesday material. Here are three metallic dragons: Gold, Silver, & Bronze..

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
*more 2013 dates coming*

First time Con Set-up notes:
Last week I received and email from an artist who will be setting up at his first convention in March, and was curious if I had any advice about setting up and exhibiting. Friends of mine suggested that this might be a topic and reply worthy of sharing, so here goes. (And I apologize for the lack of visuals that tie into the text...instead, enjoy spot illustrations from the Mouse Guard RPG)

-Pulling the trigger
First off, I'd like to start by talking about getting to the step of exhibiting at a convention. I would never be where I am now if I hadn't plucked up the courage and reluctantly parted with some cash and set up at the Motor City Comic Con in October of 2004. If you want a career in illustration or storytelling, I recommend exhibiting in an artist alley at least once if only for the experience. Like anything, you learn by doing (not thinking about doing something someday) and even if you are unsuccessful at your first show, or first several shows, hopefully you will have learned and grown...or perhaps you will be successful right out of the gate!
Obviously, if this is your first con, you are going to need to put out a little bit of cash for some supplies like a portfolio some printing, and a table cloth...but I'll get into that stuff as we go along....just keep in mind, you can start small and build your con supplies up with a small budget. And price out a conventions that works for you. There are big expensive shows and smaller shows. There are shows with a comics-only focus and shows that are multi-media extravaganzas or pop-culture themed. Think about your audience and your budget.

-What is your goal?:
If you are ready to exhibit (or you think you might be) you will want to have a good idea of what you are trying to accomplish. There are lots of different types of jobs in comics: drawing/coloring/inking/writing for a big company & established characters, doing work for hire for private collectors, doing work for hire for several publishers, drawing/coloring/inking/writing your own material, or some combination of all of those. Knowing what your goal in work is can help you direct your attention for what to focus on for your table and conversations with patrons & publishers. The set-up of a creator trying to launch their own book is very different from a creator who is looking to knock out 20 commissions in a weekend, and is also very different from the creator who is selling prints of their own concepts to try and get attention from art directors.

-Your best foot forward:

Make your booth approachable and nice as possible. You WANT people to come browse your goods and work, so make it easy for them.Gather your BEST work to display in a portfolio or on the table. This is work that shows off who YOU are...not who you can emulate. Just like a good portfolio shows a clear message and focus, so should your table. Some conventions provide a table covering, but it's worth the effort to get your own tablecloth (it can set your table apart and even be a design choice depending on color or material) For the tablecloth, fabric can be cheap at the fabric store if you shop smart, but you can also use a flat bed sheet. And if you can manage have 2 table cloths...one goes on the table under your merchandise, the other is draped over the top of your stuff at the end of the night to prevent things from wandering off while everyone else closes down or before the con opens the next morning.

-Vertical display space:

Try and make sure your work isn't all just flat on the table surface. Either with signs or racks or frames to display some of your work/books/prints/etc. upright, you will want to have something vertical so someone walking down the middle of the aisle can see what you have to offer without having to be directly over your table. You can buy little book easels or plate racks, but it's also easy to copy their design and make your own out of chipboard or cardboard on a budget. Some conventions also provide a backdrop, but most don't. I think IMPhotographics has the best deal on banners for your table, but if you are budget conscious, you can improvise your own. For my first sign, I took a large B&W dithered bitmap file to Kinkos, printed it out on their blueprint copier and mount it to foamcore and displayed it behind me on an easel ($40 total supplies & printing)

-Signage:

Make sure every bit of info you want people to have is easy to get. Some kind of sign (or banner) saying who you are is a must. Some conventions provide a cardstock name plaque, but not all do. Everything you plan to sell should be marked. You can price everything individually with tags or little signs, or make up a con-menu sign that covers everything (prints: $10, sketchbooks: $15, commissions: $80...). If the work in your portfolio is for sale, make sure the prices are easy to find. Customers should know what the prices of your items are without having to ask.

-Items at several price points:

It's a good plan to have several price point opportunities for customers. Not every person who comes up to you has $40 to spend at your table, but they might part with $20 or $5...or...they might be wanting to spend $200...you never know, so try and offer something for everyone. This also helps in making back your table fees...it's hard to make the investment back selling $1 buttons or $3 comics (even if you sell bunches of them) but several $10 prints and a few original art or commission sales can make a big difference. To vary up the price offerings you can play with the sizes of prints. Most print shops will offer a good deal on 11" x 17" prints, so in addition to offering that poster-size, think about printing 4-6 smaller prints on a single sheet of 11x17 and trimming them down. Items like comics & small prints can be in the $3-5 range, with larger prints & sketchbooks going up to $10-15, and commissions and original art being more than that (figuring out what to price your originals for is a whole other conversation)

-Freebies

At your first con new business cards printed can be your freebie, but if you have more budget or are further on in your exhibiting you can also try bookmarks, postcards, stickers (though some cons ban them) or buttons once you get a feel for your market and what you are willing pay for free items. The items should have a way to contact you (a URL, an email address, your name, or bare minimum: the title of your project). To prevent blowing through too many of these items you paid for, you can offer them only to people who stopped and showed interest instead of just having them on the table marked 'free'.

-The right sales approach:

Don't be a pushy seller. Everyone's pitch and technique is different and finding your style may come easy or take some trial and error. I advise saying hello and greet everyone who stops by (which also means making eye contact), but don't go too much further pushing unless they show more interest or ask questions. Think of it as having a conversation with the customer rather than a sales pitch. I hate being hit over the head with a full explanation of someone's project & all the prices are & what items are which the minute I walk up to them. You should be proud to talk about your work and to take the opportunity to explain it, but you will turn more people off than you attract doing a hard-sell or carnival barking people over to your table.

-Accept credit card  payments if possible:

A few years ago, you could get by without accepting credit payments, but that has changed. I'm now seeing that I would lose a good number of sales if I didn't accept them. Square is an app and device for android or iOS devices and Paypal offers one too. The benefit about both of these devices is that you can use it on your phone's data plan (not just wifi) and you have no annual/monthly merchant fees. If you don't have a device that can use either the reader or app, but can access your email, you can ask a customer to paypal you the payment on their device and you can confirm the payment was sent by checking your email.

-Commissioned work:
Figuring out the pros and cons of varied commission policies is a whole post on its own ...but I'd say the best advice I can offer is to plan ahead: What do you charge for them? (Is the amount based on size, a number of figures, media used), What you are willing and not willing to do per commission? (certain subjects/themes off limits? Backgrounds?). As you do more conventions your policies may change, and you may also need to devise a method/order for how/when you accept the requests (first come/first served? limit per customer? new list every day? pre-orders?) You will want to have answers ready (not necessarily written out on a sign) for sizes, options, pricing, etc. when asked and not try to figure it out on-the-spot.
Make sure you have materials you want to use to do commissions (paper, the right pens, pencils, color tools). If you are getting more requests than you planned, consider losing a little profit by overbooking yourself and offering to ship the finished art back to a customer after the convention. Commissions are a great way to build up a client base that may not yet be familiar with your work.

-Copyrighted characters & ideas:
Strictly speaking, you could be in violation of copyright laws by making a profit on any character/concept/or logo you don't own the rights to. A great deal of artists in Artist Alley do sell prints, commissions, and sketchbooks containing characters they don't own, but most do so at the risk that they could be busted. Some may have arrangements with the publishers of those characters because of their work history/contracts with them, others are just too small of a target for a publisher to take legal action. As an artist whose career is based on a creator owned book, I'm more interested in promoting my own ideas than copyrighted characters, so I'm biased...but my rule-of-thumb is that I won't sell printed material of anything that I don't own the rights to; however if someone commissions me to do a one-of original of a copyrighted character, I'll accept. If your goal is to get work drawing for a big publisher and you need to exhibit some of the work showcasing your understanding & skill at drawing those characters, it's fine to show, but I'd avoid selling it.

-Dry run table layout:

Measure out a place on your dining room table or even on your floor that matches the table space in artist alley. Try a few different table arrangements for all your items. Make sure everything fits and that it's arranged nicely to your liking. Avoid set-ups where your products overlap each other or look cluttered like a  second-hand store. Once you have a layout you like, it's easy to snap a photo of it and use the photo as reference during table set-up.

-Be yourself

Don't try and be someone you are not...and this goes for your artwork too. Offer up information about you or your work or your technique when asked. If someone asks you something you don't have an answer ready for (freelance work, rights questions, price breaks, etc.) It's ok to say "I don't know...let me think about that and get back to you".
Don't be self deprecating or apologize for your work...(especially if you are having your work reviewed by an editor/publisher...just listen and answer the questions you are asked) being humble is one thing...coming off like a sad artist who doesn't belong is another.

Smile, be nice, and enjoy the con & meeting people. It's a fun experience!

  Watercolor Wednesday: In case you missed last week's Watercolor Wednesday pieces, here they are for a closer look. First up is a Moon & Sun pairing. I painted the moon first and then decided it would be fun to do a 'day' companion piece. I went back and forth on whether to sell them individually or as a set. I opted in the end for them to be a set.

Second up are the Beatles in Sgt. Pepper gear. I struggle with drawing humans anyhow and getting likeness is a tricky task to boot, so in my fear of making this simple watercolor wednesday into more work than pleasure, I abstracted the layout so that the Beatles themselves were absent and only their hair & clothing (and John's glasses) remained.

Tomorrow I'll post more paintings in my online store.

2013 Appearances: 
Emerald City: March 1-3
Fabletown Con: March 22-24
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
Albuquerque Comic Expo June 21-23
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21
*more 2013 dates coming*