Ever since I was old enough to understand what a “convention” was and began to learn more about them there was one that I always wanted to attend, BotCon. As a decades long Transformer and toy robot fan this convention was top of the list to experience. This past weekend I had the great pleasure to finally attend this legendary con as a vendor!
Autobots (and Honda Civics) Roll Out!
Last Wednesday I embarked on a 12.5 hour journey that would lead me across the vast expanses of the Midwest to the fabled land of Fort Wayne Indiana. The reason was after so many years of wanting to experience BotCon I was finally in a place to where I could not only attend the show, but also be a vendor at it. I had spent the few weeks leading up to the show preparing new prints and merch to debut, all appropriately robot themed as you would expect.
After splitting the traveling into two days for my own sanity, I was able to set up in the Grand Wayne Convention Center amongst the mountains of molded mechanical plastic. I couldn’t say that I didn’t have some selfish reasons for wanting to attend this show, chief among them was to hunt down a few figures for my own collection, more on that later.
Throughout the weekend I had a fantastic time talking with fans of the shows, movies, and toys that we were all surrounded by. Friday was a huge day with all the diehard fans spending the day hunting for those holy grail finds, and I’ll admit I did a bit of pre show opening hunting myself, one of the perks of vending at a show you also love.
Once the show opened it was all business and I had my hands full making some original con illustrations of robots of wide ranging styles and types. I was even very honored to get a commission for Grimlock King of the Dinobots to be signed by Gregg Berger, the original voice of the character.
By the end of the day Sunday I was ready to call it a wrap on my first BotCon. It was an amazing experience. I was able to meet a ton of new people and have some great conversations. I was so happy to support other vendors while I hunted down figures and have them support me with my art.
A huge thank you to the BotCon staff for putting on a great show and an even bigger thank you for everyone who stopped by and had a conversation, picked up a print, or followed me, I greatly appreciate the support from each and everyone of you! I hope you all have a fantastic holiday, stay safe!
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What I’m Reading
Transformers #9 by DANIEL WARREN JOHNSON, JORGE CORONA, and MIKE SPICER
Skybound’s new Transformers run has been such an amazing story that for the first time in decades I have been convinced to pick up individual issues of a current series. I was worried once Johnson was done with the interior art I would loose interest but Corona has such a great expressive quality to his robot faces that I am sticking with the individual issues for a little longer. If you loved the IDW and Dreamwave Transformers comics I would highly recommend picking this series up, Johnson’s story is so full of heart and amazing action you will not be disappointed.
That’s all for this month, if you enjoyed the small snippet into my life please consider subscribing or sharing with a friend. I hope to see you all again next month!