Tuesday, April 5, 2011

C2E2: Brief Notes

I’m not going to write a novel about this, but C2E2 was a completely different type of show for me. Setting up my grid cube display on Friday morning, I felt very out of place. That feeling lasted throughout the whole day; doing everything solo and running on one hour of sleep of course did not help, but a good night of sleep led into a very good day on Saturday. I couldn’t help but be a little sad every time someone bought one of the two bestseller pieces (both about five years old by now), but I also couldn’t really complain.

Because I was running the table alone, I couldn’t really leave to walk around the Artist Alley, which ended up being my biggest (maybe the only) regret. I felt bad that I wasn’t at all familiar with the big names in the world of comics, but just being aware that I was in the same space as some pretty renowned artists was very humbling and encouraging at the same time.
The crowd as a whole seemed to care more about art and actually had a budget for it. I am used to people asking for smaller versions of prints. Not here. Here the question was: “How big does it come?” More than a few times, people told me to just keep the change. It felt surreal, in a very pleasant way. The general demographic was a bit older, a bit more mature.

I also took on a few sketch commissions; a couple that were super quick (more like doodles) and also a couple that were a bit more involved. The people who wanted quick sketches just told me to draw whatever (Friday); the ones that took a little longer were of original characters (Saturday). I normally never ever do con commissions. The closest I’ve come to it in the past was doing a couple of art trades with Coey at Youmacon, but I had never actually done paid at-con commissions before C2E2. This time around, I decided, “Why not?” I think part of it was linked to having developed my own style a bit more, to knowing my abilities and limits a bit better as well as being comfortable with them. Also, of course, there were more people looking for sketches from artists. I still feel a bit iffy about taking on larger commissions from other people unless they completely resonate with me, but to put it simply, doing sketches for people can be a fun way to pass the time.

Definitely not as many costumes as at anime cons. I felt overdressed even in my very casual clothes with my very casual hair and make-up. Also, there didn’t seem to be nearly as many girls in the Artist Alley. A lot of guys in jeans and T-shirts, very serious business. *__*
All in all, I felt very, very lucky to have been presented with this last-minute opportunity; hopefully, I can participate again next year. And even though I came to the con by myself, I got to hang out with a few people I don’t get to see that often, which was pretty nice. :)

A doodle from Saturday morning:


Touched up a drawing from one of my sketchbooks, to be inked later:


Finally got around to drawing this silly thing for Jim:


1 comment:

  1. I was pretty disturbed by the description of that sketch when you were telling me about it, it's even weirder seeing it finished hahaha

    ReplyDelete