Once again, NakaKon never ceases to amaze me with it’s amazing amount of Cosplay and it’s East meets West aspects. I’ve gotten into the groove of the show somewhat now, and so that leaves a lot of time on Friday and Saturday to work on ideas and showcase my art skills to new people. I find convention time to be an odd time for me though.
You see, under most circumstances, I prefer to be at home drawing while listening/watching some History Channel in the background, but for the most part, usually isolated and quiet. Occassionally a cat or two will pop in to walk across the keyboard or sit on my artboards, but otherwise I just work away in my quiet zone.
So maybe it’s the overall energy and vibe of being at a convention that gets my creative juices flowing. I had been struggling with a character design and in no time, it was coming out and coming to life as fast as I could put pen to paper.
Of course, when I am at these kinds of conventions, I try my best to accomodate people wanting me to do some sketches for them. This year seems to have been the year of the sketchcard (I’d like to blame the economy, but why get on that soapbox? You all know what’s going on in the world.) Andrew (below, next to me) helped me brush up on my Naruto knowledge, because lord knows, my knowledge of Anime is really bad unless we’re talking Macross/Robotech stuff, with the slight exception of Gundam Wing which I am a complete fan of.
But more importantly, it helps keep my skills refined and polished because I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I am doing when I am out and about illustrating. Everyone has those days when you can’t even pull off an illustration of stick figure theatre, but thankfully that has yet to happen to me at a convention.
Like I had mentioned earlier, Anime cons are usually heavily loaded down with cosplay, much more so than your average comic convention, and this year had a lot of really fun and well done ones. Luna Lovegood is completely awesome above, and the Jester/Harlequin was very nice, and even though the fairy was extremely well done (evidently she is a pro costume designer) I literally was losing my mind over the amazing job that the fellow did below with Mojo Jojo.
But those three above were far from the only ones around, and I have a lot more photos that I hope to add to the gallery soon. Otherwise and aside from that, Nakakon was a blur to me. One thing that all reenactments and convention shows do to me is wear me the heck out. In a good way. But the best part about going to these conventions is being able to see a lot of people of like minds come together, old and young, (but in the case of NakaKon, mainly young) and have fun together.
Battle of Lone Jack Museum and Memorial – Lone Jack, Missouri
Although I keep a pretty busy schedule, I am making it a point to go out to places in the KC and surrounding areas that I had always wanted to go to. Since I’d recently gotten into civil war reenactment and living history sort of stuff, I thought it might behoove me to finally make a stop by one particular battlefield that I have driven by for well over 18 years and never bothered to stop and look at.
The museum is a small but really nice building with an impressive and well maintained collection of civil war era artifacts that specifically have to do to with the Battle of Lone Jack.
The one lady who I got to talk to there knew the story of the battle both backwards and forewards and filled me with a sense that she truly loved the history and times that she was talking about and had come to be a curator for in this little museum.
I usually tend to gravitate towards my favorite kinds of items, namely weaponry, which they had some wonderful examples of there. But in truth, I don’t want to take away anything from the experience of going there and seeing the place yourself, so I don’t want to put up images of all the stuff that I had seen.
The admission is $3 for everyone unless you are six years old or younger, and goes to support the Historical Society’s upkeep of the museum.
FanCon #33
On a final note, here are a few designs that I came up with for the show this past weekend. I went even more stylized and simple than before because I wanted to refine down the speed I am trying to get these done in.
Granted, my cat Radar wanting to help, so the Rocketeer art is a part collaboration between myself and a one year old cat.
I’ve got some new things on the horizon that I hope to talk about in the next update, and hopefully some previews of other projects that I have been working through. This has been one of the busiest months I have ever had in preparation for shows, personal projects and a lot of other stuff. Unfortunately, there was a severe lack of time to do some things that I had some high hopes for, but who knows how next month will pan out. Heck, because of the way that things are, that’s why I’m updating my website at 1 AM.
Until next time, appreciate everyday that you have, and live life to the fullest! – Mario, the Artisan Rogue