the best corner at the con - david petersen in red, cory godbey in blue
In short - it was a good convention. I've been to Heroes Con once before, in 2017. That was the summer before college. A lot has changed in my life since then, but the familiar con social-anxiety was still there: how in the world do you have a meaningful conversation with a famous artist and express interest in their work, all the while not seeming like a creep? Cause I know a lot about these guys. I know what projects they're working on. I've studied their moves. It's kinda my job. But I'm a total stranger to these guys. And I want any conversation to build up naturally, as if we both didn't know that much about each other. That was hard in 2017. But in 2019, I had a newfound advantage. I could now, as they say, talk shop! Now I could talk about art process and running a booth and freelancing in addition to the usual fan stuff. It felt like I was beginning to transition from being a fan standing in front of the table to being an artist behind it. Since I want to run a table at future conventions, it was nice to have this trip to do some research - checking prices, asking for advice, and seeing what sells.
The day started off good with a surprise appearance of Cory Godbey, an artist I don't directly reference in my work, but whose blog posts on Muddy Colors are always nice to read. He wasn't on the guest list, but he was nevertheless there, and with a very well-put-together booth.
I took photos of a few tables to use as reference
There was no one at his booth, so we just talked for a while as I flipped through his books. That's probably rare at other conventions, but at Heroes Con you get a lot of time to talk to the artists. As I was looking through his Visions of Whence, I came across a process explanation of his pencil sketches. It was surprisingly intuitive, and definitely effective in the hands of Godbey. The book was out of my price range, but I made a mental note of the steps and tried to replicate it in my Zeldathon drawing for today - with surprisingly good results!
thank you cory, I will try to pay you back later
I met a few other artists, inadvertently insulted Jeremy Bastian's slow inking speed, and marveled at the amount of cosplay. One of my favorite parts about the convention experience is that as you walk closer and closer to the convention hall, you can pick out more and more people who are very clearly also going to the con. And it's always fun to see people in full airbender robes walking around uptown Charlotte.
Heroes Con has a minimal animation presence, but I attended a basic storyboarding workshop and I peddled my story portfolio around to the few story artists that were there. They proceeded to rip it apart pretty thoroughly. I'm kinda a critique masochist, so I was fine with that, but I thought it strange that these exact boards elicited nearly no critique when presented in class. I think the boards may have relied too much on me pitching them with additional explanation (which I do in class, but not at cons). I also didn't have my best sequence in a presentable format, and I think that sequence avoided most of the errors the artists were pointing out. The big takeaway I learned was clarity over coolness. I think I get carried away trying to add depth or difficult shots and forget about conveying the idea clearly, which often requires a simpler approach. And all my pans and trucks/zooms would be a hassle to actually animate. It's good to learn that now, I guess! We've yet to see if I'll actually edit my portfolio based on this advice - at this point I don't know if it would be a better use of my time to refine these sequences (which were some of my first boards ever) or take the knowledge and make newer sequences. Knowing my tendencies and aversion to serious drawing revisions, it will probably be the latter.
Anyways, that was my experience. I hope to be on the other side of the table next time. But in order for that to happen, I need to have something to sell ... and my current book is taking twice as long as expected.
Oh bother.
-dh
No comments:
Post a Comment