Georges Jeanty: Encounter and sketchbook review (Auckland Armageddon 2010, Day 3)

Okay, this got ridiculously long, and I have to close up the libary now, so I'm just posting the Georges Jeanty part. Because it was my favourite part of the day and I ended up writing a ton of words :D (heavy writing >.>). Quick intro: Georges Jeanty is the artist who draws the season eight Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics. I didn't know this until this week.

I was browsing through the leaflet of Stuff That Happens At Armageddon on Sunday afternoon and I noticed that some guy who draws the Buffy comics (the recent season eight stuff, which is mostly so very much better drawn it's ridiculous, which I already knew, plus I am an ever-increasing Buffy/Whedon fan XD ) was actually here, and signing and stuff. It started of as a minor 'cool, some person related to a fandom that I'm actually interested PLUS ART' but became a highlight of Armageddon for me - and the more I look him up, the more impressed I am.

If he had a panel, I missed it, but because I knew he was at the con, when wandering out to get breakfast around midday on Monday (...don't ask. I ended up getting chips for me & the Plan Pony & Arkillian) I noticed a poster that looked Buffy-ish on a stall near the front, squashed in next to ... I think it was Marvel stuff. I looked, I flipped through the folder  because I really wanted to know for sure, found it actually really was Buffy graphic novel art, and then noticed the little sketchbooks along the side (and my sympathies for the people who came to MY stall are increased ten-fold. His stall was actually fairly cleanly laid out!)

Anyway, he spoke up then and said they were twenty dollars (me: urk, my sales! [...lack of]) ...with a  free sketch (me...oooh. Oh dammit, I want one anyway), then I think I wandered off... back to my stall to grab money from my float (pushing my earnings well into the negatives for the morning!). I also picked out two of my BtVS fan arts to ask him to sign - the Buffy and Willow ones that were the most awesome (well, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan). (Again, no Tara in season 8, or I might have picked her; that left my favourite, Willow, and Buffy who was the main character). Anyway, I asked for Willow for my sketch, because she's my favourite (well, it was her or Giles or Tara, or maybe Buffy, but Buffy's everywhere and Tara isn't even in Season Eight, so probably would have been unfair to ask for and Willow just beat out Giles. Cause, pretty! *is shallow*... yes, I way over-analysed all this).

I couldn't pick between the fan arts but he was awesome and signed both. Even more awesome? The bit that made my whole entire week? He asked me why I didn't get the original artist to sign it, and didn't want to spoil the pictures *does foolish dance of crazed artist*

One of the few things I actually bought - a sketchbook from Georges Jeanty, about drawing some of season eight of Buffy, with a sketch of Willow, and my signed prints of Willow and Buffy.

The sketchbook I picked was number 3, which covered one I'd actually read in the library - issues #11-15 (*cough Satsu/Buffy lesbian sex scene cough* ) ... more seriously, I liked what I saw of the discussion about it, and the rest of the book, which contained a whole bunch of sketches and discussion and some actual full 'pages' (sketched, of course, I don't think he had any hand in colouring them). Each of the covers (below) had a page, and an explanation about the references and what he was trying to do (and if he was happy with it!)

 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, issues 11-15

 Anyway, I was more happy than I expected to be with the drawing (...yes. I am REALLY picky, art-wise. This means if I liked it? It was probably good :D I hope >.>) and I took the book and went back and read through it (YES. Entertainment! I as getting quite bored towards the end. I knew I should have bought a book or six!) and was made even more pleased (in an 'artist figuring out this whole traditional/commission thing' way) to see the pencil marks behind the ink proving that artists are allowed to be human XD )

Speaking of books... If I had brought one, I'd probably have grabbed a Discworld book, and to my sorrow and grief only one single (and therefore super-awesome) Discworld fan spoke up about my Vetinari picture that I drew for Wear the Lilac Day, also later that day. And bought two, so is even more awesome.

I'm not a huge fan of artbooks, partly because most of them seem to want to include tutorials and I don't follow those well (or at all) so just skip them. Georges mostly wrote about what he was trying to do and what it was referencing and what influenced the elements of the pictures, which was much more interesting. There are a lot of pictures to look at, and a nearly equal amount of text.

The book's small - A5 sized - and I'm worried about damaging it, bending it open. Unfortunately, the text runs way to close to the edge of the paper and the ends of sentences are tucked right down into the spine (no bleed allowed for) - there are also quite a few typos, and signs that there probably wasn't an editor, but what he talks about is both interesting, and useful. Plus, Buffy.

Photo of one of my favourite pages (it just had a lot of faces I particularly liked...) from the Buffy sketchbook.

A closer up photograph of the sketchbook, and the talking. Quite interesting to read, especially the mind-blowing concept that professional comic artists worry about getting likenesses right too! Also, many typos, but not many in this section XD

(I now want, even more, all the BtVS graphic novels. All of them. To own and have in a row on my shelf. I've even *horrors* started eyeing up the many fascinating BtVS figures available.)

More from the rest of Day 3 to come! (Edit: here )
Day one and day two of Armageddon are already posted.

Auckland Armageddon Convention 2010: Day 2

Sunday was my best day for sales - it wasn't quite as busy as Saturday, but the wrestling announcements were slightly quieter. Slightly. Also, I guess people were coming back through after running around making sure they saw everything. It was also the day I really got into making tiny paper people. I ended up with a small army of faces and fan art poking out of signs and lined up in the (very limited) space around the front.  I drew two Buffys, using my painting as a reference (on left) - the first I was very proud of, and gave away to Asgard, and the second wasn't nearly as good. Sadly, I forgot to photograph Asgard's, so will stalk her site and see if a photo goes up >.>

Also finished off the leather-wrapped, winged girl I started at Doujin Overload (my report here) and stood her up. Interestingly, she was the only drawing from DO that I actually liked when I went through my book - all the ones I did to sort of 'do what was expected' and that I tried to ink neatly (she was just a messy sketch that I got into at the end) were really, truly awful. So, "giving up trying to do what other artists do even though it looks awesome when they do it, and accepting that I have to draw my own way" lesson learnt? Check :D

Photo image dump at the end of the post! (for now)

I also drew a fan art of Drake's awesome ninja cat, Ninjet. She's a white cat, in a black ninja bodysuit. It's actually a clever design - it's simple and easy to draw and very much 'cat'. I remembered him from last year - I told him to join DeviantART so that people could stalk him, as far as I know he hasn't yet - I don't think he remembered me (I'd have been very surprised if he had!), but he recognised my t-shirt (I was wearing the YinYang one) bcause he'd asked about it when I'd wandered off and missed him, while setting up. His site is down and has been for a while - apparently he's moving domains or something - which is annoying, because I wanted to add it to my Ninja Cats page. There's a listing for the comic here, for some kind of linkage. Bought a couple of small prints off him (actually, that was the first day - I used them as references for the fan art)... and he bought two cat stickers off me (both the Yinyang ones; colour and black and white; the other kitties weren't out and I picked them up from home later).

I bought candy floss for the second day in a row. It was fun, especially the way it vanishes as soon as you eat it, although the attack of sugar starts burning my mouth by the end.

I found one of the Star Wars collectors' booths, with a variety of R2D2's, Star Wars suits of armour, and a Han Solo in Carbonite, as well as a large collection of Slave Leias in a large bubble display. I took a couple of photos, for drawing references, but most of them looked pretty tacky (and it was a bad idea, at least for a few of them, as the proportions were way off and I ended up sulking about the drawing a lot. Somewhat loudly at my stall-mates :D Turned it into a stand-up.)

More R2's than I've ever seen in one place before, plus Darth Vader and Stormtrooper armour, Han Solo in carbonite and... a random droid (edit: apparently that's a droid bounty hunter called IG-88)

R2D2 from Jabba's barge, serving drinks that look suspiciously human-blood-coloured

The Slave Leias, trapped in their bubble/force field.

A close-up on the Slave Leia statues and dolls; the two largest in the front, half-sitting, you can look at on Amazon below, the two tall ones at the back are just customised dolls, there's a Lego Leia just to the below-right of the centre, hidden behind the right-hand Leia, and the one standing up, holding onto the rope/pole is the one I tried to draw from.

Some of the more expensive statues looked nice, though, and it turns out that there are some impressive version out there! (I had to look. And now I have to show! Not my photos, just showing off from Amazon - I don't think any of these were the ones on display)



Funniest moment of the day: watching Bria & Vader's heads swivel as they watched a guy in a Stormtrooper outfit walk past as they tried to work out a) who he was, b) if he was one of their guys from the 501st stall, c) why he wasn't wearing it properly (the belt was loose, and ... well, that's all my uninitiated eye could spot ;D ). So Vader (not his real name. Oh, you guessed that?) follows him to the nerf gun stall, and it turns out it's the guy who organises Armageddon, who just bought his shiny new costume and wasn't too happy about having it corrected within five minutes of putting it on.

But they cheered him up with four people shooting him at once with nerf guns (which are awesome, if a rather lurid orange, and shoot a very loooong way... into the rafters in the ceiling *looks idly at very interesting object on far side of room to avoid meeting any eyes*. It wouldn't have happened if I'd been allowed to shoot AT someone!) and having all the foam pellets bounce off his armour spectacularly. It looked fun :D

Bria-Silivren in a fight to the death with one of the Nerf guns. Behind her is the Dr. Who stall (Weeping Angel on right, Dalek on left) and I believe she's cosplaying Marion from the Indiana Jones movie (re-using the Anna Valerious shirt, anyway ;D )

Apparently there were a lot of Dr. Who cosplayers, unsurprisingly, as the Dr. Who speaker had a panel and was signing stuff. There was a nice lady with a little stall tucked against a wall near us with Dr. Who -inspired jewellery - all cogs and wheels and things, in bronze and silver. The site's here - Whovian Jewellery. I haven't seen much of Dr. Who (no telly) so I didn't recognise any.

Day 3 had mimes, skeletal t-shirts, left over posters, fizzy tablets, less money, Buffy comic artist George Jeanty, live rick-rolling, cosplayers, and energy crashing. Also a final tally of my haul. Plus will mention the (awesome) Drawfest stall, posters, t-shirts and earnings, and any other things I forgot.  It's late, and I'm on a crappy computer at my parent's house, so not tonight.


But for now... PICTURES!

My Tui t-shirt, and the back of the stall. And the charming model, of course.

My tiny Willow drawing. I like this one! She stuck out the top of one of my displays for a day and a half.

The second Buffy-head. With the traditional 'what would Buffy do?' caption 

(there's even a book!

)

Complete view of the stand-up gladiator/bondage Angel. Someone (forget who) said she was Slave Leia inspired, to which I say she actually wasn't - the red was more of the memory of an old drawing I did, which had a girl all in red and white.

A first attempt at Dark Willow (failed, but helped me remember what she actually looked like), a headless Leia (because the head was terrible and nobody is looking there anyway), tiny Tara head to go with the nice Willow, and a teeny little 2cm tall tui bird that I gave to my mother.

Tall figure-referenced fail-Slave Leia standing up, with tiny-Slave Leia next to her for reference.

The paper army scouts! Seductive tiny-Slave Leia distracts and seduces; the all-seeing Eye (referenced from my Buffy painting again) sees all; and tiny-Dark Willow floats in a spooky way wherever she chooses.

My Ninjet fan art - copic to fill,

black brush pen lines and shiny silver pen for the sword.

And finally, the posters I bought on the Saturday; Unicorn from Kotorigaro and random-painting-chaos-guy from Murk (a.k.a. Cannibal-Cartoonist)

Also, two awesome guys turned up and came and said hello - actually knowing people at Armageddon makes it 5 times better, and having people attending actually come find you triples the awesomeness again. This guy who I pimped earlier dropped by and inflicted me on his friend who was very nice about it, and bought art (and I gave him a discount, of course ;D ), and the person I skipped out on at Saturday and left to cope with students on his own (I'm sorry! No, wait. I'm not. Here, have this as a token of my forgiveness.) dropped by with his friend (I didn't know I gave him permission to have friends...). Huh. I never did go to the Laserstrike tunnel.

....and the rest must come later.
Click for Day one update.