Here are the full versions of the sketches. Sadly, I didn’t remember to take photos of most of them, but these were probably the my favorites:

I have a terrible habit of always forgetting to take photos of sketches I make at cons.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  My hand was sore, but I can’t tell you how pleased I was that I got so many requests for Korra. (I did remember to take pics of all THOSE.)

These were all drawn with no reference.  I have memorized their designs. XD

Apparently “crossplay” (Crossdressing+Cosplay) is extremely popular in the Netherlands.  I saw a lot of genderbent versons of characters running around, but this group was by far the best.  Marlin (aka Mario… er, Maria? XD) also lives in Amsterdam and said she’d take pics of locations for me! What a nice gal!

Also, there was a gaggle of trolls running around.  I took pics of these two when they passed my table.  I don’t read Homestuck, but I know a lot of you guys do. I was pleased that when I showed Ingrid.  Out of all the billions of trolls, I happened to snap her two favorites.  Is this what they call… destiny?

Slowly but surel I’ve started working through my old pages and updating the artwork, at the request of a company I’m hoping to publish the comic with.

Here are two samples: (click to enlarge)

P.S. These are all viewable on my DeviantArt account.
As you might guess, it’s slow and painful work, but the result is interesting. It’s refreshing to see how much I’ve improved at this style after two years!  It’s also nice to revisit and touch things up/fine tune details and possibly add some foreshadowing to events I hadn’t foreseen at the time of drawing the pages. XD

In addition to Sister Claire stuff, I’ve also been getting back into the swing of concept art for “Nightingale,” with a couple more concept arts.  I’m trying to fine-tune this style, and really get a grasp of how to do the lineart and coloring.

I was not able to wear purple today, so I wanted to draw something to still show my support for bullied gay teens in the wake of the recently publicized suicides. I want to add something though, something I feel the “It Gets Better” campaign has really overlooked. The problem isn’t that gay teens are having trouble coping with bulling.

THE PROBLEM IS THE BULLYING. How would it be acceptable if this was a support movement for beaten housewives? Would we be content with just saying “It’s going to get better?” Here’s a suggestion. How about “I promise to do everything I can to put an end to homophobic bullying”? Educate yourself, educate those around you, and speak up when you hear someone say something hurtful. It’s all good to wear purple and show support, but the most important thing is to speak up and make a difference.

The characters on the right are from my upcoming comic series, Nightingale. (Click here for more concept art.) Sofie (Nightingale) is making the ASL sign for “Love.” (Can also mean “I Love You.”) Emily was signing “Spirit,” but she’s been interrupted. XD

Pictured from left to right: Sister Claire, Gabrielle, Evil Cat, Snowy, Sofie (AKA Nightingale), Charlie, and Emily.

I am SO tired, this was very hard to put together- I loathe group pictures, but this was even weirder than usual due to my two completely different styles. XD;

I’m gonna tackle some more hair practice when I get a chance, because I think that’s one of my major challenges in digital painting.  I think I’m gonna say SCREW HAIRBRUSHES and try some other tutorials, like this one.

 

Sweet jesus would you look at the SIZE OF THIS THING?! AHAHAHA WOOOW

Took a 70 minute canal ride around the city, got a lot of great reference photos- hoping to take a tour of/sneak into some tall buildings tomorrow, to get some rooftop/superhero angle shots.






Red Light district! Lololol

I also found the PERFECT Sofie’s house:

More pics coming soon! It takes forever to upload from this stolen wireless. >_>

After having dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant, my bro and I headed over to Boom Chicago, comedy improv club. I remembered them since befriending Heather Anne Campbell, an extremely talented and hilarious lady who was part of the cast during their Vienna show.

During the show, I was picked when they asked the audience if anyone had a business card. They gave me a short interview, asking what my job was, what was this business about Lady Gaga on my shirt (I was wearing this one. XD)  Then,one of the actors impersonated me as if I were a Dutch politician. (Dutch politics were the theme of that night’s show.)

As if my entire evening hadn’t already been made by that awesomeness, on our way “home” to the hotel (which is very close to the red light district) I saw some strippers poledancing to Lady Gaga songs in a brightly lit window.  I am truly among my people here.

Tomorrow we’re having breakfast at a place called “PANCAKES!”. No, I’m not exaggerating, that’s really their name… exclamation point, and all. XD

Hopefully I can catch an orchestral concert or a ballet while I’m here. A Nightingale research trip just wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Concertgebauw. More updates soon!

Someone requested a Lady Gaga sketch at YaoiYuricon, of course I was glad to oblige!

For reasons I can’t understand, girls kept coming to my table requesting gay porn, despite the fact that I was the ONLY yuri artist there. XD

These are some older sketches from another dedication event:



For the majority of the time, I was meeting up with editors and comic publishers to introduce Sister Claire (and in some cases, concept art for Nightingale) in hopes of getting published.  As you know, I’ve been working on Sister Claire for over a year now, so I had a lot more material to show for that.  I brought 4 preview books and t-shirts, which were all given away to the most interested publishers.   I met with a lot of big name publishers, most of whom were not interested.  Publishers usually have a very specific idea in mind for what they are looking for, so this wasn’t a surprise to me.  Nonetheless, I waited patiently and showed my work to every editor who would see me.

As a result, even if not everyone showed interest in publishing me, I made some unexpected contacts with some really cool people, including C.G. Marra from Passenger Press, an Italian publisher who is making an all-girl anthology soon.  I’ll be in contact with him about doing a 6-8 page comic in Sister Claire style.  =)

Sadly I didn't have any time to go to any of their meetups, but I'm sure it was really swingin'.

I met Tim Fish, Paige Braddock, and Abby Denson at the GLBT booth.  They were all really sweet and interesting to talk to, particularly on the subject of the first gay superhero in Marvel finally being allowed to have a boyfriend.  It was also nice to talk to them after 2 days of speaking on French and Italian, it was nice to have a moment in English again… XD

Thank you so much Mr. Grant! T_T You're a cool dude.

As for other artists I met, perhaps the most famous was Alan Grant, the writer of Tank Girl.  I chatted with him for almost half an hour while I waited for my chance to meet some editors from Ankama.  He was the one who stood up and waved at me when someone was finally free to speak to me!

Speaking of which, there’s pretty much NOTHING published by Ankama that I don’t love.  (But my faves would be Maliki, Muthafukas, and of course now the french version of Tank Girl!)  I think my Sister Claire style really matches their theme.  I hope I’ll have more good news to bring soon regarding this soon. ;D

The waiting area to speak to Soleil editors looked like a fashion runway.

While waiting 30 minutes in line to meet the editors of Soleil (who looked at my stuff for about 3 seconds before brushing me off… lol, c’est la vie.) I met a very talented artist from Argentina named Alejandro Marmontel. He does some really nice digital painted coloring for a collaboration comic.  This dude is totally gonna be famous someday. O_O

I also met Rosalys, a more manga-style artist who does some really gorgeous artwork.  She’s also really cute herself, but I was too shy to tell her that in person. XD If you know the MMORPG FlyFF, you might be interested to know that she made the comic that started it all! She also has a video interview here! (Sorry… it’s in French)

There was a public reading room where people could vote on their favorite comics and listen to live interviews of the nominated artists/writers.

In the above picture room, there was also a public “drawing board” where visitors could leave messages and drawings.  Of course I couldn’t pass up the pimping opportunity:

Claire left her heart in Angouleme...

Similarly, at a Wacom tablet exhibition I took it upon myself to do a little demonstration, leaving behind an unfinished sketch of Nightingale:

On the subject of Nightingale, I had a particularly interesting meeting with the heads of Tekneo, who have developed an application to bring comics to the iPhone and other portables. I was very excited to sample their technology, because they are incorporating slight animation, but more importantly, sound into the modified comics.  This got me wondering… what if Nightingale was published on this platform, with audio supplements to make it accessible to blind people?  It’s been long plaguing me that my comic, which focuses on a blind superheroine, is ironically inaccessible to the very people it’s meant to educate the public about.  If I could team up with them to make the first blind-accessible “comic”, that would be pretty revolutionary!  They seemed equally hooked by the idea, so we’ll be keeping in touch about this.  The first release of Nightingale may end up not in print, but an interactive, portable platform! <8D

I also met some strange characters wandering about the city- some were more recognizable than others.  I even picked a fight with the biggest one!

Lady Gaga’s super-tall French cousins from Yamino on Vimeo.

Also, possibly the biggest surprise wasn’t even at the comic festival itself.  My host had a disko in her basement.  No, really… with a full bar and everything.  I made this little video while I was zoning out in between two conversing people.

Basement Disko from Yamino on Vimeo.

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