Had a few hicups with some things from my understanding but overall, not bad. (BTW, I suggest if you ever want to meet Lou Ferrigno, you bring at least 60 bucks in cash with you... make it singles that you bring with... no, better yet... pennies.)
I went to sit at my table at 830 am. I was to be there at 10, but I found out traffic was lighter on a Saturday morning than I remembered. I got my free comics (YAY first time I ever went to actually get them) and waited for the humor to ensue. Well, it didn't take long and a kid shows up to ask about sketches.
My buddy
was with me as he was setting up his table next to me. The kid was in his teens, working at a local Taco Bell and hadn't slept in perhaps... 18 hours, as he was waiting in line when he got off work at 4 am. (he and two other kids were the only ones in line at that time.)He asked if we would do a star wars portrait (We were doing free sketches for people, but there is a limit to what we'll accept as free. Read on) We knew there was something up because he wouldn't look us in the eye when he was asking us about this. I said, "Define star wars portrait." He said, well, I don't want anything detailed like you have in this piece here (spacegirl that I brought with me, nicely inked.) But I want Darth Vader standing with a bunch of storm troopers in the back and some Jedi, but I don't want them clumped together.
Dougie and I laughed a little bit and said, "That's a commission. We do those, but not while sitting here today. You can get ahold of us tho and we can do it when we're not here."
HE said, cool, but what's the difference between what you do here and a commission? So I schooled the boy in the ways of art talk... A free sketch today, is a sketch of what you want, and we give you something and you like it and take it. A commission is, we do what you want, we give you that piece and you take it and like it, AFTER you pay for it."
He said, ok, so how much would this cost? So, I explained there are a variety of determining factors in finding out how much this would cost. Afte 15 minutes of talking to get it out of him, we came to a price of 350.00. He said ok, cool. I said, let me rephrase that... It's THREE HUNDRED Fifty Dollars... NOT Three dollars and FIFTY cents.
He said, no I got that. So how do we do this? I siad write down your name and contact info and I'll get in touch with you this week. So he did and as he walked out the door he said, "I better hear from you this week." I said, "Oh, you will."
I'm pretty sure he's going to say No even if I do call him.
I had a few inquiries on commission work so that was a plus. No one bought my sketch cards that I brought with me... and understandably so. I also due to the prices I posted for those sketch cards... got people far away from my table that thought they had to pay for a sketch. (All though I had it written that you get a FREE sketch today)... No one reads anymore... real shame.
Anyways... 3 hours in... I'm sketching away and this Mom with her kids shows up (hot mom too) And wants... the Millenium Falcon sketched for her son...
Dougie and I looked at one another and he waited for me to say no... but like an idiot I took the challenge... I said this is going to be Jon Riggle's Version of the millenium Falcon because I don't have reference for this. (I knew the general look of it) but the kid wanted it highly detailed... ugh... so I get done with that and she said now, would you do one for me? I was like... um, ok? WHO (I made sure to use WHO and not WHAT) she said she wanted a tie fighter drawn.... WTF?!
So, I did the best I could. She loved both and moved on to the next guy... Dougie whom... what did HE get to draw? YODA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get tech drawings and he got the fun stuff?! UGH
Anyways... we were doing fine after that... I got a lot of requests for storm troopers which all I did was the helmets and a straight on view...
I suddenly hear some kid making trumpet like sounds from his mouth... of the star wars theme, which I didn't mind at first... but then, he changed songs on me, to jaws, raiders of the lost ark, show tunes like broadway and every other pep band song I used to play in highschool and college... FOR A GOD DAMN HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY TABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND HE GOT LOUDER DOING IT! He was given signals to shut up but being a kid, didn't take the hint. I suddenly got a headache. I was starting to fall ill from said headache and I hadn't eaten all day, except for an oatmeal rasin cookie. So, Dougie took a break and got me part of a sandwhich (thankfully I took it and wolfed it down as I could between sketches) But it didn't help me... people in line started to ask me if I was alright (the kid had left by this time) and a girl I know asked if I wanted to come outside and get some air with her... so we talked for an hour in the shade trying to calm me down and learning a bit more about me than she wanted, I'm sure lol. And we had a lot of fun. (At least I did). My headache started to go away... stomach problems started to ensue however... ugh. but I pushed on with that problem and sat back down and started drawing. First thing outta the gate... a little girl wanted Black Cat... had a hard time hearing her as I changed the character twice on her... She finally pointed to my sketch card and said I WANT BLACK CAT, CAN YOU DRAW BLACK CAT? (I was thinking, well yeah smartass you're pointing to a card I drew of her.) So I did that for her and she liked it. By this time I'm doing full figure sketches for most of em, and not doing a lot of detail or shading (I'll have to do that next year perhaps.)
Her sister, wanted Catwoman... so I did that. During this time, I met a guy who wanted a sketch card... noticed how he and one other guy have very firm wives that are really tired of their girlie collection of comic character art... so I had to draw deadpool for him on a sketch card. Found out he's part of a forum I'm on,which was cool to see and talk about. His friend wanted carnage which, I couldn't remember how to draw Carnage, so he picked venom... while drawing I was talking and I felt more relaxed talking to these people, rather than them just standing there watching me.
I had a kid ask me for a Darth Vader... which I did a half body of and after drawing it I realised...I drew a character that's all black... and I only had black ink with me... then I remembered I had my grey tone copics and I said "You're lucky I have these, as I'm doing this only for you today." And I did a grey tone coloring of Darth Vader. Took me about 25-30 minutes I'd have to say. Honestly, I don't know what real time it took, but it felt like it took forever. He and his mom were quite impressed and very thankful... which was cool.
The trumpet kid came back towards the end... and finally left as I heard him playing his favorite tune and I looked up with the imagry of death and carnage at him and said ... "It's you again."
I didn't mean to look like I was going to rip his head off, push it through his sternum and chop him up into little bits and feed him to the nearest pitbull... but apparently that's how I looked.
As I was drawing Wolverine a few times during the day, I saw a picture in my ipod of the ole Canuk that I really liked... it was from Dark Reign and I used that pose for the rest of the day... it was easy, fast and only from the waist up. Worked really well too. I was please with those sketches.
I didn't have many requests for him tho... which was odd. I only had one for the hulk too, which was just as odd, since Lou was here at the store.
Let's see... I mainly got the kids coming to me as some of the other guys got the hot babes that threw themselves to the artists... why the hell they couldn't come to MY line I have no idea.
OH! Creator owned character requests... I had one come up to me asking for a sketch of his character... This was when I was feeling sick I should add.... I did the best I could and with the information he gave me, which was somewhat contradictory at times... The character made no sense and the design was far beyond flawed because things didn't make sense in the drawings he showed me. He said he's taken years to perfect this character and had it in his head since he was a child (scary thought if you saw this character). The girl I was talking to on my break was behind him talking to him and she gave him some advice about going to artists and not giving them such minute details on his character... He said oh yeah I'm not like that... turns around and says... Oh yeah, he has detatchable ear lobes, turns back around and starts talking again.
Dougie and I looked at each other and mouthed 'WTF?'
Normally in a situation like this I would have asked questions... but I just wanted to get it over with at that time.
Break time
Went back to drawing
Towards the end... a gal who was probably in her eary teens was really upset that the other artists refused to draw her a snake eyes from GI Joe. Reason they refused... it was 6 pm and time to call it quits. I was in the middle of a wolverine for a kid and I said ... Hey, what did you want drawn? She told me and I said "After I get done with this one, I'll do snake eyes really quick for ya."
So, I did and she was very thankful. She said this was probably the only time in her life she'd be able to get this done. I'm thinking to myself, well, next year we'll be doing this again... But I said you know... I'm here, I have about two sheets of paper left... I'll do one... it's an easy friggin character anyways.
A guy and his two kids walks in right when I'm finished with snake eyes and asked for two characters... the first one I dont even remember who it was... the second one was a Thor. So, I drew it out as best I could (I suck at drawing Thor because I draw Triple H as my Thor)
After I was done, he slides a 10 spot at me for what I did... I pick it up and I said Oh sir, no, you keep this. He said no you earned it man... I put it away and said thank you to him... Iw as happy someone had the common respect to even think about paying for a sketch... not really a sketch perse, but that paper doesn't grow on trees and no one GIVES me that paper for free. (Yes I know paper is from trees, but you get the point that it's not FREE to me.)
I had my marvel masterpiece artist proof cards for sale and they were ultra high priced... not because I want to keep them, but because that's how much I feel they're worth for the time involved in them, and they are one of a kind AND on marvel masterpiece card stock... with the 'Congratulations, you're now the proud owner of a one of a kind authentic Marvel Masterpiece artwork' (or whatever it says on the back)
The other two cards I had lower prices on because I cranked them out in about an hours time and they weren't on that same card stock.
So... that was it for me this year... 39 sketches done... no REAL problems to deal with of people asking for truly unrealistic sketches (minus the falcon and tie fighter... which wasn't unrealistic, just really weird) Thinking about it now... I pry could have gotten away with doing grey toned sketches of those... but then everyone would have wanted that.
Oh... one thing that was commented on, was my technique of drawing... No one had ever seen the method I used before and thought it was kinda cool.
I was using a 10% grey prismacolor marker to rough in the character (or vehicle) and then with whatever pencil I had laying around, I'd go in with the details and draw the character. Sometimes inked it, sometimes left it pencil...
Then, I went home and crashed after I got there.... sore as hell today and learned a valuable lesson... make sure you draw faster, so you get more people through the line and possible get the hot girls in your line. lol
People of great talent:
...more to come!
