Cardiff Comic Expo 2011

I spent last Saturday at the new Cardiff International Comics Expo. We didn't know what to expect at first, but the Mecure Holland House Hotel was a smashing venue. The crowd was friendly and I had great company next to me at the artist alley: Howard Hardiman and Geoff Banyard, and the ever lovely Adam Davies (official minion at comic shows) helped me out when I needed to leave my table. The Etheringtons, Andrew Wildman and Genki Gear were the only other people I managed to see, the day was so busy!

Dave's Demon Tomato #1 and #2 both sold very well and I did my usual £10 sketches throughout the day. Here are the main ones, sadly I completely forgot to take a photo of my drawing of the Doctor riding a welsh dragon!













So Cardiff was a hit, and Dumpy Little Robot will be at the Bristol show later in the year. See you then!

BICS 2010

Oh dear. I don't think we were very popular at BICS this year...



JUST KIDDING! This is what our spot actually looked like:









Hurrah! We had a fantastic time at BICS this year and Hall 2 felt just right. We had great company with us, our friend Tom joined us as part of team Dumpy Little Robot and took us down. Helped us with boxes, watched our table, found amazing food places and was his usual fantastic self. He's on Twitter as @ThermobaricTom and you should all go and say hi!

We also met up with Lydia of Genki-Gear, the best and coolest indie T-shirt business in the UK I'll have you darn well know. Check out the site. It's full of fantastic geek and anime inspired designs!

We were also lucky enough to have great company around our table. Jenna Whyte next to us with her buddy, selling some beautiful prints:



On our other side, Scott Stanford and Catherine with his novel Dorothy, The Darker Side of Oz. Again, the loveliest people:



Opposite us were Jason Cobley (DFC, Captain Winston Bulldog) and Neill Cameron (also of the DFC!). We ended up chatting about all ages comics and I left with a lovely selection of books from them both. Here's Jason and his table:



And not forgetting all the other great tables in hall 2, I sadly didn't get enough time to go around to see everyone but Jess Bradley, Josh, Louise Ho, Will Kirkby, and Nigel Dobbyn I'd like to give a shout out to. Plus of course the Etherington bros, Cinebooks and Fetishman in Hall 1 who I briefly got to visit!

We also had visits from the lovely Lizz Lunney, Den Patrick and Lew Stringer, and a whole host of friendly sorts who really seemed to enjoy our work! Dave did well with The Demon Tomato and we got a lot of good reactions to Imaginary Gumbo. I also ended up doing a lot more sketch commissions than I'd expected, here are the ones I managed to take pictures of.

Power Girl!





Simon of Legacy Comics in Halifax, long-time fan of the Gumbo idea, asked for a sketch of Gumbo. :)



On Saturday I drew Deadpool riding a pot-bellied pig. It sold pretty quickly so had to think of something funnier than a pig to follow up with:



After the reception of Deadpool on a pig/Deadpool on a tortoise, I decided to ruin Batman:



But Batman approves!!!



Awww Batman! :3



And then he was snapped up by the lovely Britt here!



Her lovely bloke Paul then wanted a sketch too. He thought Emma Frost having a nice cup of tea would be just right. I felt that the lady might also enjoy some half-coated chocolate digestive biscuits.



And a close-up:



Leather jackets, hell yea!



I don't think nice Batman would like this one. :(



And Adam here asked Dave and myself to do portraits to add to his collection:



There were some people and sketches I have probably missed, it was all a bit of a whirl but I hope everyone who came by over the weekend knows that we had a smashing time and loved meeting all of you! And if I got someone's name wrong feel free to tell me off. :)

Sketch Cards

Just a quick bit of fun before work today. I've been doodling a few of these cards in my spare time and leaving them at the shop to advertise my blog a bit. It's fun and good practise!

Sketch Cards

Holy moly, an update! It's been a busy few weeks and my sketchbook has been getting lonely. Extra days at the shop mixed in with colouring more Tom and Jerry. I have managed to get a little bit of personal work done but I'm still not as close as I'd like to finishing this spanking new portfolio my brain is envisioning. And Nemesis Fleethas slowed to a crawl for now. The crawl of a dead, rotting fish.

Dave has been dishing out drawings all over the place for his December project however, the productive git! I can't wait for him to post that stuff up. And though I've been stuck at work I've been making a lot of these little buisness cards to promote the blog. People like em! It's fun giving my customers something like this, and it's been a good exercise. My sketches have been growing in confidence.

Batman is the most popular. This is not even remotely surprising.



Coming later this week: Nemesis Fleet development (honestly!), more Tom and Jerry colours and, of course, some Transformers.