Unexpected April Awesomeness.

I like it when unexpected things happened to my favor. They're mostly little things but never failed to brighten my day. Last week I attended Norwescon. It was a smallest con I've ever attended, only 3500 of attendance, set in the hotel. The best thing about the con was that a lot of attendees dressed up in awesome costumes, not necessarily just cosplay but general period and steampunk stuff, a lot of pirates and knights from various era. I spent most of my time walking around with @bicyclefish, attending panels, one of the panel is introduction to Armor, ran by Dameon Willich. I spent the time in the panel sketching him because he was wearing an awesome armor. Afterward, I showed it to him and found out he had worked with DC and Wizard of The Coast. He gave me a signed artist's proof card (the back is blank) and gave me encouragement I much needed.

(on a side note, when you bump into someone in Seattle, good chance that they work or had worked for Microsoft, Boeing, Wizard of the Coast or a few other game studios)

Another awesome unexpected thing was that I got my Guild Wars 2 artbook (which I got for free from PAX '09) signed by A LOT of people from Arenanet, thanks to Horia Dociu.



And thus end the awesome April for me, until next month!

Futurepoly

I'm taking a short course on digital painting at Futurepoly. The course is taught by Horia Dociu. I had to admit I was interested in Futurepoly because of Guildwars. I'm a big fan of Guildwars and a chance to get a hand-on information from people who work on it is too good to pass on. I know of course it's not a magic bullet to help me get any better at digital painting, but a little hand-holding goes a long way.

Surprisingly, the most valuable lesson for me so far wasn't about how to do mad detailed rendering, but how to do fast readable sketch that can get idea across, how to see big picture.

Here's some of in class stuff I did:

Evil cat of doom.

Same scene from various angles, conveying different feels.

20 mins quick copy, can you tell what are these from?

20 mins tribute to Ashley Wood, who doesn't like robot with chick? 

5 mins copy of my least favorite movie, never been easier to look at something with clinical eyes.

Recalling the March Madness.

I've had a crazy month; two cities, two cons, a few too many airports. In all honestly, I don't know where to start, so I'll do this in chronological order.

FEB 27: Getting a new baby *cough cough*

It's a latest macbook pro model, with a useless thunderbolt port and i5 core, a lot of people will argue that the 13" model isn't a real 'macbook pro', but it's good enough for my need (it's already better spec than my late 2008 imac) and 15" is just too damn big for me physically.

Another loot is LG optimus V from virgin mobile, a decent android phone with an unlimited data plan for $25 a month, with no contract, pay as you go, imo the best smartphone deal in the US.

MAR 5-7: #ECCC.

My first Emerald City Comic Con. At first I wasn't sure what to do. My main goal was to meet with people, which I did. My apology to everyone for my awkwardness, that's what happened when you only came out of your cave once every 2 years XD

Another goal was to get my portfolio reviewed, which I did. This time, I didn't really prepare the portfolio specifically, I just threw stuff I did through the last year. Surprisingly, it went better than when I was more prepared, weird.

Annnnd, to top off my inefficiency with this con, I forgot to take any photo, all I took is a photo of sandwich:



I talked to Dan Vado (of SLG) about the future of The Sisters' Luck sequel, while the sales of the first book is bad, it's my obligation to finish the story somehow, someway. So it's gonna happen in one form or another. Thankfully, I had enough good feedback in stock to push me through.

Mar 10-15: Boston, Massachusetts.

PAX EAST AHOY! I love Pax, absolutely my most favorite con, I wish I can attend every one of them. This time I was there as an enforcer, my duty was to guard the door of BYOC (bring your own computer) and pestering people to show their badge XD

I tried a lot of new games, got to try GW2 beta (neener neener), some action game with assassin elf in skimpy bikini which I forgot the name, Marvel VS. Capcom (love it, suck at it), and even Kinect dance central, which was embarrassing but fun.

Why, yes, giant Pikachu:

Screenshot just can't express how awesome GW2 is:

As for Boston herself; she shall be remembered as the coldest place I've ever been to:

I also did a little sight-seeing, got lost and took some photo.

You can't really see it, but this was where I had my first taste of snow: