Mondo Poster: Brave process:

Last Sunday Mondo released a Brave poster I did for their Oscar themed release night. Mondo has a great reputation for working with talented illustrators & designers and terrific production quality on their prints, so I was thrilled and honored to be asked to participate. I loved Brave and took my nieces to see it at their first Drive-In movie experience last summer. When released after Brave won for Best Animated Film on Sunday, the poster sold out in a few minutes (as Mondo prints tend to do). In this week's blogpost (which preempted the normally scheduled Mouse Guard architectural model, now to-be-seen next week) I'll run through the process of creating the image and the tricks in preparing it for the  silkscreen process.

I started with a rewatching of the movie and planning the concept points to be: a scene that seems 'brave', defining Merida's form by her hair, and getting to draw Mordu the villain bear. I sketched up a design and mocked it up in photoshop. Since the orange hair was a planned focal point, I opted to make the rest of the palette in the blue family. I trimmed the piece out with a designey wreath of the wisps and a border used in the tapestry in the movie. With a silkscreen print, you are limited on colors, so I planned to use colors over again. The orange is also the color of Mordu's dead eye, the brown of the ground is also the details of the border, the tan of the bow is the field of the border.

So it would be easier for me to separate out the colors onto different layers for the silk screen separations, I inked the components separately. The first up was the darkest screen color, the linework of Merida, Mordu, and the ground. Because the final print size is 24" x 36" I wanted to ink this LARGE to minimize any quality loss when enlarging my scans. The inks are 17" x 24" (and had to be scanned in parts since it wouldn't fit on my scanner all at once. The inking was done with Copic Multiliners, a brush for the fills and a brush with liquid white for making the negative space of Merida's hair.

The next inked piece was the border. I pieced together two different borders from Pixar to get the design to fit the perimeter of my piece. The animals were all from the tapestry in the movie, and to fill in the tall side bits, I found a few tapestry borders they used in some promotional art for the film. I hand inked the border because I wanted the piece to work as a whole and not seem like parts of it were photoshoped together. I wanted to hand distress the design in a way that ties it together with the inkwork on the characters. This piece is also 17" x 24" and had to be scanned in parts.

I inked other parts of the piece of smaller pieces of bristol like the darker lines of Merida's hair (seen here with round registration points that match up on the bow). Though I could have just processed the art from Pixar, I decided again to hand ink the Brave logo knotwork for the same reasons I hand inked the border. And that strip in the middle...that's a patch to extend the bottom of the original inks...but I haven't gotten to the reason for that yet....

At this point I processed all my inked artwork and the assets given to me by Pixar and got my file assembled and ready for approval. Pixar hadn't seen my rough, so the 'finished' version was their first time seeing my piece...and they requested changes. Normally, I've found that suggestions given to an artist on approvals for a licensed property are 80% silly and unnecessary. The folks at Pixar though...were 100% right and helped me make a much better finished product. They requested changing the scale of Merida to Mordu, to nix the wreath of wisps into a few ground wisps, to get Merida up higher than the logo (so she's not standing on it), and eliminating the tangent of the arrow on Mordu's lip. To fix this I was able to do most everything digitally (even drawing in some patch hair on Mordu with a Wacom tablet), but the strip of sticks I mentioned before had to be hand drawn to extend the bottom of the image when everything shifted upwards.

I had a big learning curve on this piece. Not only did I have to re-set my brain to think in terms of limited color, but also about the printing process. The order in which colors are printed and if they need to overlap or not is a real trick to figure out. Colors are generally printed light to dark...but there are exceptions that need to be taken into account there and to make sure there isn't a gap in between colors that butt against each other, the previous color needs to go under the color that will print after it. This is called 'trapping'.  I've put together this animated gif of the different layers to simulate what the print looked like as it was silk screened. I hope Mondo will ask me back for another print, as I now feel I have a better handle on the technical process of planning and preparing the art for a silkscreen printing like this.

Here are a few detail images of Mordu & Merida from the final version of the poster:

And another look at the poster in full.

As I said at the start, the poster sold out at Mondo in a few minutes of its release. At a later date, I will have some copies to sell through my store, but I will not do so until I have the prints in-hand. Please do not try and request them in advance, offer to reserve one, or ask when I will release my copies...I'll Tweet and Facebook update when they become available.




Watercolor Wednesday: Both last week's and tomorrow's Watercolor Wednesday pieces are exercises in redesign of old characters of mine. First up is something I called Poohbah, which started life as something closer to Genma Saotome in Panda form from Ranma 1/2, and ended as something more like a bear with bunny ears & Mickey Mouse markings. He was a bit of a Hobbes character for a little flying boy named Zippy when I created him (even did some animation in my DOS based Disney Animation Studio program in the 90's). This redesign still holds to the idea that while Poohbah may look like a real creature, he's just full of stuffing.


The 2nd is a redesign of a lizard creature I wanted to do as a puppetry project in the late 90's. These lizard guys would be a party of adventurers in the arctype tradition of fantasy RPGs. I still hope to build some of these puppets some day...

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*

Monsters & Dames 2013 process

The Emerald City Comic Con has a fantastic Art book they put on every year at their show called: Monsters & Dames. The book features art with...well...Monsters & Dames by the various guests of the convention and the money raised goes to a Seattle Children's Hospital. As I am returning to Emerald City this year, I contributed a piece for the 2013 book. In year's past I've done a Frankenstein's Monster & Bride piece and a Dame riding a dragon. This year I wanted to do something a bit more fairy-tale-ish. So I did my take on Beauty and the Beast.

 I did a lot of looking at other versions of the pair, illustrations by Edmund Dulac and various other golden age illustrators, the animated Disney movie and stage play, and Jean Cocteau's La Belle La Bete 1946 film. The goal was to give something new, and Petersen-ish, but still familiar. I drew a Beauty and a Beast in separate pages in my sketchbook (so if I wanted to redraw or correct one or the other, I could do so without fearing erasing any part of the other) and then assembled them in photoshop. Beauty was inspired by a photo of Anne Hathaway and Beast is an amalgamation of my own illustration tendencies, Disney, and La Bete's wardrobe from the French film. The background is a zoomed in section of iron casting I felt made a nice design and set a mood of both beauty and danger.

The above digital composition was then printed out so I could tape it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On a lightbox I can see through the bristol to the printed layout and use it as a guide while I ink. This also means that unless there is an area I want to tighten up or correct in pencil before I ink it, there is virtually no pencil on the finished piece to erase afterwards. I inked the linework all with a Copic Multiliner pen (mostly the 0.7 nib) and the ironwork with a brush. The embroidery on Beast's cloak and the lacework of his high collar & cuffs was inked in black though I wanted them to appear lighter in the final color version. At this stage I worried that committing Beauty's face to an almost binary black/white line had taken away the softness and tenderness I worked so hard to get in the rough.

The finished inked piece was then scanned so I could flat the colors in. Originally I had Beast's clothing in more of a black/navy configuration and Beauty's dress in more of a gold...but I realized that I was being too heavily influenced by the palette of the Disney movie and Cocteau's film (the colorized cover art to the DVD). I swapped out the blues for reds (a color of aggression and passion) and the gold for pale blue (a color of sweetness, calm, and innocence). Even when drawing this piece, I knew the background was going to be in the violet family, and luckily the clothing color alterations didn't force me to change my background color scheme.

After the color flats are established and I've set the basic palate  I render the piece adding shadows, highlights and color transitions. Normally I do this exclusively with the dodge & burn tools in photoshop (using a textured brush) but this time I also used the paintbrush for some color transitions and a feathered lasso to isolate and enhance the color in selected areas. To get back the softness I felt I lost in the inks from the pencils, I focused on rendering the subtlety back into Beauty's face (with a little help of the Anne Hathaway photo for reference on the planes of her face & neck). I added color holds on Beast's embroidery and lace and to the background iron work too. I didn't want the iron to overtake the emotion of Beast's torn feelings to reach out for what he wants while fearing the outcome and internalizing his own self-loathing (at least that's what I saw going on there...)

The Monsters & Dames book will be available at the Emerald City Comic Con for purchase (as well as the original art being auctioned off there) and remaining books are usually offered for sale online through the Emerald City website after the con ends.


Watercolor Wednesday: For those who missed seeing the Watercolors from last week's Watercolor Wednesday, here's another look at them.
First up: 7 Horcruxes. I'm a big Harry Potter fan. I came across a 7 pointed star design while researching patterns for my Free Comic Book Day story. It occured to me that it would be a great template to make a Horcrux chart. I organized them in the order in which Voldemort made each (starting with the book and rotating clockwise)

Second up is one of my favorite paintings I've ever done for Watercolor Wednesday...and I'm not quite sure why. It's a heap of coins. I painted this at the same time as the Horcrux piece, so the palate is similar (those are the colors I had wet and going). I looked at some historic ancient coins for inspiration, but for the most part, I let the brush suggest details rather than plan them out.

Third painting from last week is a bell. I'd planned on this being more of a Christmas themed painting, but didn't get it done and posted in time. The music below the bell is 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

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*

Reference Model: Shorestone Interior: 
Last week I showed you the exterior model of Shorestone. To celebrate Black Axe #6's printed release tomorrow, I'm sharing the model I made for the interior of the city of builders. Like last week, there isn't anything spoiler-ish  in this post. Everything you see is on page 2 of the issue. So enjoy the post without worry.

First off, you may be saying "What!?!?! he built this much of a model for what happens on ONE page of the issue!?!?!"...yes. yes I did. At the time, I figured I'd show the interior for more than the one page, but after I finished, I realized that the story had to push on and couldn't linger in this city's thorofare. And as I often come back to locations in the course of Mouse Guard (not to mention the cutaways and guides in the hardcovers) it was more than worth the time to build this model.

I already had the exterior facade model to butt this up to, and that model being locked in also gave me some detail aesthetic cues to use too. I wanted the city to feel detailed, huge, and organized. I repeated the same window design from the exterior for the archway doors and upper level windows. The floor is detailed tile work (designs taken from cathedral windows and some tiles in an Irish church) to again show the different types of craftsmice working & living here. Shorestone is like a city-sized resume for the mice there.

The walls and floor are cardboard skinned with printed paper designs. but each build modularly  so that I could access the model from different vantage points and also reconfigure it for other parts of the city if necessary. The image to the right is a bit of photo trickery. Locking down my camera on a tripod, I photographed the model walls in 2 different locations on the table. Then in Photoshop, I was able to composite them together into something even more big, echoy, and vast looking than my model.

The roof section for the main hall I filled it with banners. I'd made reference to a banner from a Legends of the Guard story being hung at Shorestone (eagle eyed fans won't have trouble picking it out), so I figured Shorestone could have hundreds of banners and flags in their possession ..perhaps they display the colors of the various cities, towns, and groups their laborers made structures for.

Finally, Here is how Shorestone's interior looks in ink & digital color on page 2 of Black Axe #6

Two weeks from now I'll have another model post...hopefully everyone will have had a chance to read the issue..because the next model & post could be spoilerish.

Watercolor Wednesday: Here's another look at last week's Watercolor Wednesday paintings (for those who are new to Watercolor Wednesday, I post a few original watercolors for sale in my online store each Wednesday. They are affordable and go quickly, so follow me on Twitter or Facebook for the quickest notifications of when they go live) First up is a green man, but in autumn colors.


The second watercolor from last week is some sort of goblin-like fey in a red hood. No particular inspiration for these two, just what came out of the brush on to the paper.

Third is what started as me trying to emulate Tony DiTerlizzi's expressions on a cliche Leprechaun. I added the scale mail cloak to try and de-cliche him, but I think now it just seems sillier.

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*

Reference Model: Shorestone Exterior:
A few weeks ago Black Axe #6 was released digitally on ComiXology and will be in print on-shelves next week (the 13th)! So, you may have already read the issue, but if you are waiting for the print version, this post won't contain any real spoilers and will only show the first page of artwork from the issue.

A new location is visited in the first scene of the issue: Shorestone. I've never shown any part of Shorestone before this, so I had to design its look for these pages. I took what I'd already put in the RPG book and what purpose I needed the city to serve as as my inspiration. Shorestone is a city that is known for builders, workers of stone especially, but also wood and metal.

I based the overall exterior design on a Romanesque church. The 1/2 hexagon main building facade is cardboard with basswood trim. The entry and towers are chipboard and cardstock clad in printed arch designs. When I got the structures built, I could measure them and make 'faces' or 'skins' for each piece in Photoshop using photos of arches and windows I have in my collections from my travels. The round windows were also printed designs simply glued on to the cardboard.

To beef up the trim on the towers I added a few layers of cardstock under the printed trim pattern. The 'roof' of the towers was achieved by wadding up aluminum foil and packing it so tightly that I could shape it by kneading it against a hard surface. I wanted the exposed facade of Shorestone to ooze skill and craftsmouseship. I added a lot more detail than I normally would with the repetitive trim patterns, edge trim & buttresses, the varied materials & shapes, and even the scale.

The roof of the front was also something I added more detail to than I normally would. I figured in a town of craftsmice know for their skill and talents with architecture, they would have a complicated and useful roof. With mouse cities being mostly underground or inside something (trees, rocks, etc) any extra ventilation and light would be welcome. For the model, the little cupola vents were made of basswood scraps (you can often find bags of bigger than craftstick sized pieces at your local hardware or craft store)


Here is the city exterior as it appears on page 1 of Black Axe #6. Having the model certainly helped me figure out the design of the building itself. I was able to design the place faster than I could have ever could have drawn it all just by trying things out. If I thought something was too tall or too short, I could swap out the cardboard for a different piece. I could design 1 detail and repeat it over and over in Photoshop and just have to glue it on. If I'd tried drawing it, I could have ended up spending the same amount of time and only had a single good drawing from 1 angle out of it.

With the subject of my book being the unbelievable caveat that mice walk, talk, use weapons, etc...I need everything else to be as grounded and as real as I can make it seem. Doing models like these are a time-saver for me (honestly!)  but also add the weight to Mouse Guard I feel necessary.

Oh...and the inside of this model? yes, I designed the inside of the entrance to Shorestone...but I also build a model for what lies beyond too.....That's for next week.

Watercolor Wednesday: In case you missed last week's Watercolor Wednesday pieces, here they are for a closer look. First up is a Monty Python & the Holy Grail themed piece. This is one of my favorite movies and as I still lack the courage to nail liknesses, I opted to depict the knight characters using only their tunic designs.

The other two pieces from last week were a Satyr & a gargoyle...but I don't have too much to add about why or how I painted them...so just enjoy

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*

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*