Cheltenham Comic Book Festival

Back in early 2014 I was told about a Kickstarter project to help create a comic book festival to be hosted at the Cheltenham Race course and if I helped with the Kickstarter by giving enough money I would have a table on the day so me and another student paid half of the table price each so then we could share a table on the day. Fortunately for us the Kickstarter was a success and we were given our table.

The event itself was held on the 7th February so that gave us plenty of time to create some artwork ready for the event. For this I created five different pieces of artwork to sell on the day, two of which was fan art which I wrote on them that I did not own the rights to the character and the name of the companies who do own them. I planned for each print to make an A4 print and an A5 print so people could place them on their walls without having to consume too much space on the wall and paid the company AJ Green Printing to print 10 copies of each size print because I was told by Andrew that I should focus on between 10 - 15 prints each so then I wouldn't spend as much money and still have a nice variety to sell on the day. The printing company sold me the prints at a good price of only £25 which was very reasonable since I needed to prints done quite quickly so I could get them ready for the event.

Below is the list of what I spent for the convention:

Table: £20
Prints: £25 from AJ Green Printing
Money box: £15
Plastic sleeves: £10
CardBoard for back of prints: £3
£50 change for the day

Total Cost: £113

When it came to selling my work I asked for Andrew's advice of what I would sell each print for and he told me that for the A4 prints that I should sell them for £15 each and for the A5 to be sold for £10 each. I had also decided by then to sell the originals to try and make back my money for the costs which Andrew told me to sell for £30 for each original.

I also decided to advertise work for a fellow illustrator that I know from back home in return for her advertising my work on her page.

On the day I had to get there for 8:30 to start setting up. With my layout, which you an see below, I believe that it was a mistake not buying a stand or something similar because it made the table look too busy and messy. Unfortunately at the end of the day I was unable to sell any work which was very disappointing but I was not phased and decided to take this as experience and focus at what I did wrong so then I can improve ready for next years convention.

Table Layout

Mine and Dan's work on the table

Setting Up

Print One

Print Two

Print Three

Print Four

Print Five

Anime, Comics and Gaming Society Competition

As I am a member of the Anime, Comics and Gaming society I as allowed to be part of a fan art competition they were running for a Halloween event. We were allowed to submit any form of fan art we liked and it had no conditions for what medium we should use or what form of fan art. For this I submitted this drawing of a character poster for the character Death from the Darksiders comics and game series. Unfortunately, since I gave the leaders my sketchbook and on the other page was a drawing of Minnie Mouse I did for a friend, when they showed the drawing around during the event some of the members thought my entry was the other drawing so I came last in the competition. This experience taught me some valuable lessons when it came to handing in art for the competition by making sure the drawing is separate from the rest of my illustrations.

My design for the competition

Proposal

Through this time I plan to extend my knowledge of the business world within illustration and to find new techniques and areas to improve the techniques I already use. In the future I hope to get into an business where I can focus on creating my own characters, their backstories and morphing humans with something else, on a regular occasions animal and if I could choose which business I would choose a comic book industry that is fun and would let me express my creativity. When I look at the artists I would like to interview I will look at ones that have worked for major comic companies and also create a lot of anthropomorphic characters.

An artist who has inspired me for a long time and has helped me decide my art style today is Chris Riddell who is the political illustrator for the Observer who also works with Children's books as well. I love the design of the creatures he can create and his amazing detail to his characters, yet he mostly work on monochromatic pieces if it is not for the newspaper: I will be contacting him through his website

Chris Riddell: http://www.chrisriddell.co.uk/contacts-links/

An artist that works in the comic book industry that I am inspired by is Juanjo Guarnido who is the illustrator for the graphic novel series Blacksad. I love how he can show the characters' expressions and make them resemble the animal counterpart they are addressed as so well. I also really like the gritty colour scheme of the artwork since it makes the novel seem more like film noir-esque. I will be contacting him over facebook.

Juanjo Guarnido: https://www.facebook.com/juanjo.guarnido.artist/timeline

Through my hobby of Magic the Gathering I have been introduced to another artist who I now inspired by named Peter Morhbacher who is an independent illustrator who has done some freelance work for the card game but is now mostly focusing on his own project called Angelarium. I will be contacting him through his website.

Peter Morhbacher: http://www.vandalhigh.com/about-me/

Through my other hobby of reading Marvel and DC comics I was introduced to another artist called Jim Lee whose work i adore the most out of both of the companies. I will try and contact him through his deviantart

Jim Lee: http://jimlee00.deviantart.com/



With companies I would like to work for, Vertigo Comics is one. They are a comic book publisher that are an imprint under the main DC comic book publisher, they have created one of my favourite comics of recent times Fables. The company that would be my dream job would be Marvel comics since I fan of nearly most of their work and a giant fan of some of their artists' styles.