bryanyw (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bryanyw) wrote,@ 2008-07-07 22:22:00 |
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Convention Stuff
Back from AX! I guess this concludes the 2008 convention season, unless for some reason I decide to do a smaller show in the near future. Thanks to those who came out, I really enjoyed seeing old and new friends again. I certainly feel a lot better after this show than I did at Fanime, which by all means wasn't a bad show at all. In fact, count it all up and I did really well, money wise, in both shows, maybe the best I had ever done. I think the bad feeling I had after Fanime was due to external factors, and not Fanime or the customers or whatever themeselves. You see, I was about to give up a whole year of conventioning to buckle down on my art and my new comic.
But after AX, I realized that reclaiming a couple days out of the year from conventioning would not be much benefit to my overall goals; in fact, avoiding conventions could be counter productive. Conventions are, hard work, a lot of stress, and a lot of spilling out your soul to the public. At the same time, they are my livelihood. I can't begin to talk about the joy I feel when I meet people like myself, fans who enjoy my work, great artists I am inspired by, and folks who are passionate about where they're going with their art as I am with mine. For AX this year, I've had more commissions than I have ever done in any convention. For a brief moment, I can consider myself a professional artist! Drawing for money! It's not that much money, but I rarely get that opportunity. And every so often you'll get the request that you have little motivation to do, but sometimes you'll be presented with a creative challenge that results in a product that you never knew you could come up with. Some commissions are absolute joys to do. I've realized, while working on commissions at AX, that I've improved quite a bit. And there's nothing better than racing through commissions on a hectic Saturday afternoon. It's a brief chance to be an artistic powerhouse.
Conventions help me assess where I am at and where I need to be. After doing it, I'm aware of the areas of art I need to work on. The talent in the AA is definitely inspiring to me. It's a boost jump that one usually doesn't take into account when tabulating up the money at the end of the day. And each new convention is a chance for one to bring out something new, because there are people who'll remember you and will come back to see what you've done. They motivate you to be daring and think big.
So I'm saying all this gushing stuff in retrospect; all in all I can't separate myself, at least at this time, from the Artist's Alley, and I'll continue to keep doing them as I can, painful as they sometimes are. Knowing that convention season has died down for me, I finally feel like I can fully concentrate on my next large undertaking....with some caveats.
Nevertheless, the next one for me, I think, is ALA 2009 in January. I hope to have something good by then as well.
That is all!
Back from AX! I guess this concludes the 2008 convention season, unless for some reason I decide to do a smaller show in the near future. Thanks to those who came out, I really enjoyed seeing old and new friends again. I certainly feel a lot better after this show than I did at Fanime, which by all means wasn't a bad show at all. In fact, count it all up and I did really well, money wise, in both shows, maybe the best I had ever done. I think the bad feeling I had after Fanime was due to external factors, and not Fanime or the customers or whatever themeselves. You see, I was about to give up a whole year of conventioning to buckle down on my art and my new comic.
But after AX, I realized that reclaiming a couple days out of the year from conventioning would not be much benefit to my overall goals; in fact, avoiding conventions could be counter productive. Conventions are, hard work, a lot of stress, and a lot of spilling out your soul to the public. At the same time, they are my livelihood. I can't begin to talk about the joy I feel when I meet people like myself, fans who enjoy my work, great artists I am inspired by, and folks who are passionate about where they're going with their art as I am with mine. For AX this year, I've had more commissions than I have ever done in any convention. For a brief moment, I can consider myself a professional artist! Drawing for money! It's not that much money, but I rarely get that opportunity. And every so often you'll get the request that you have little motivation to do, but sometimes you'll be presented with a creative challenge that results in a product that you never knew you could come up with. Some commissions are absolute joys to do. I've realized, while working on commissions at AX, that I've improved quite a bit. And there's nothing better than racing through commissions on a hectic Saturday afternoon. It's a brief chance to be an artistic powerhouse.
Conventions help me assess where I am at and where I need to be. After doing it, I'm aware of the areas of art I need to work on. The talent in the AA is definitely inspiring to me. It's a boost jump that one usually doesn't take into account when tabulating up the money at the end of the day. And each new convention is a chance for one to bring out something new, because there are people who'll remember you and will come back to see what you've done. They motivate you to be daring and think big.
So I'm saying all this gushing stuff in retrospect; all in all I can't separate myself, at least at this time, from the Artist's Alley, and I'll continue to keep doing them as I can, painful as they sometimes are. Knowing that convention season has died down for me, I finally feel like I can fully concentrate on my next large undertaking....with some caveats.
Nevertheless, the next one for me, I think, is ALA 2009 in January. I hope to have something good by then as well.
That is all!
