Comic Con
The Big Damn Display: Last spring I watched the lovely Brittney Lee demonstrate her paper sculpting technique, where she brings a 3-D relief aspect to her already wonderful art. Everyone was so mesmerized by her demo, that no one noticed the light bulb that went off over my head.
So I took my 'Shiny' print that features the cast of Firefly, and printed the background and each character separately, and very big, roughly 8' wide and 7' high (!) The characters were mounted on foamcore and floated at different elevations from the background board. And cause I can't leave well enough alone, I added flexible LED light tape for a subtle glow behind the characters. It was all very groovy, but the trial and error took weeks, and a huge toll on my wrists and knuckles. But it was worth it every time I heard a genuine 'Ooohhh' as people passed by. Thank You Ooh-ers!
Dragon Con
People will say some of the nicest things at shows. It's very gratifying to hear such acknowledgement of the hours, days and weeks of hard work that I put into a given piece of art. As the show was winding down, I heard some very kind and rather astute words regarding my work and design choices. I looked up and the fellow was Michael Whelan. MICHAEL. WHELAN! If you don't know, google him now, I'll wait. ...So, I was seriously flustered, but I managed to get a hold of myself and not pee the carpet like a nervous puppy. We even got to hang out for a few minutes, he showed me some of his originals including his Way of Kings cover. Meeting your heroes can sometimes be disappointing, but not Michael - he is a class act, all one could hope for and more.
