For fun I thought that I would post this. It is an older video highlight the art that I did for www.popculturenetwork.com a while back. I still do art like this from time to time.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
PowerCon 2012
So a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday I headed over the Torrance Marriott Hotel to attend the second annual PowerCon/Thundercon 2012.
Now for those of your who'd don't know, I am a He-man and the Masters of the Universe fan. I have been since the day that I walked into the Mervyn's toy department, yes readers in the 1980's Mervyn's department store had a LARGE toy department that rivaled Kay B Toys in it's day. Anyway, imaging it's 1982 and ten year old me walks into this store, and after years of little 3 3/4 star wars and micronauts figures I see this massive display of these hugely muscled barbarians, scarey cool monsters and even a sorceress thrown into the mix (come on Teela had a Cobra staff and hood, doesn't scream warrior to me).
What really got me going though was the artwork. Big bold Frank Frazetta style fantasy art of fantastic battle, fierce monsters, and THE CASTLE. Castle Greyskull, the art on the front of the box was enough to draw me in. Of course it wouldn't be until my birthday that year that I got any of these fantastic toys, but they were worth the wait. Never did get a Castle Greyskull, still don't have one to this day. Gonna have to fix that someday.
But speaking of that amazing artwork that drew me in. The original artwork for those Masters of the Universe toys was done by Rudy Obrero, and he was one of the first people I got to meet on my rounds through PowerCon.
Mr Obrero was selling prints of his original work, which sadly I could not afford, and giving away copies of his awesome children's book "Griffin the littlest gargoyle.
The fantastic castle artwork I referred to sits over my right shoulder. I really wish I had the 200 dollars he was asking for it, but I had to settle for this picture instead. You can find more of Mr. Obrero's great work at: www.rudyobrero.com
As a kid, the He-man and the Masters of the Universe Cartoon was a big part of my life. Everyday after school I would get to see another adventure with my favorite heroes and villains. The action was toned down, the villains were cheesy, but it was great when you were a kid. One of the minds (and pens) behind that great show was Robert Lamb.
Mr Lamb was the head writer for Filmation, the American animation studio that produced He-man and the Masters of the Universe.
Mr. Lamb was nice enough to spend a good half an hour talking with me about the series, the studio, and the differences between the Filmation series and the Mike Young Productions series that aired in the early 2000's. We agreed that the 200X series had much better story lines and action, but lacked the amazing backgrounds that the Filmation series produced. Mr Lamb's website can be found here: http://www.robertartwriter.com/Home.html
While speaking to Mr. Lamb I also met James "Bustatoons" Eatock, who had his table set up next to Mr. Lambs. James has his own blog about the Filmation series which can be found here: http://bustatoons.blogspot.com/
One of few items I purchased at the Con was this old test sheet from the Masters of the Universe series. While not particularly valuable in the Animation collectors market. Three things made me want it.
It's a picture of Evil-Lyn, one of my favorite characters, from one of her featured episodes "The Shaping Staff".
It has actual animation notes written on it.
It's a piece of MOTU history that I now own!
Some one else I met at the show as Jack and Leslie Wadsworth. Jack and Leslie are actors who, in their younger days, played characters like Conan and Red Sonya in the Universal Studios "World of Conan" stage show, and more importantly, they played He-man and She-Ra in the live action Power Tour that traveled across the US in the late 80's. Yes boys and girls, He-man and She-Ra, who were brother and sister, were played by a married couple. Here's a commercial for the Power Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2MkmbJX--M
A couple of years ago I came across this guy called Pixel Dan. Dan did reviews of the new Masters of the Universe Classics figures for www.he-man.org. He was also a member of another website called the pop culture network. I started watching their reviews and web shows and became a fan. I then started doing various pieces of fan art for them which they would often feature on their shows. Then Dan began co-hosting a MOTU Podcast called "Roast Gooble Dinner" which quickly became one of my favorites. Needless to say, one of the things that I was looking forward to doing at the PowerCon was meeting Pixel Dan and the other members of the podcast team, since they were the ones who were hosting the PowerCon itself. Well mission accomplished!
Here I am with Pixel Dan and his wife Christina.
When I first walked up to them, there were several people in line to get pictures taken with them. Dan has become a bit of a celebrity in the MOTU collecting community and his wife Christina is his camera man and sometimes co-host on his own website: http://pixel-dan.com/
When they finally had a free moment, I walked up to Dan and said "I know you don't know my face, but here's a hint as to who I am." and I produced my sketchbook revealing sketches of the fan art I had done for him in the past. He laughed and said "Yeah I know exactly who you are now!"
Dan and his wife were extremely nice and I spoke to them often throughout the day.
Another great guy I met for the first time was
Emiliano Santalucia.
Emiliano is a former co-host of Roast Gooble Dinner, and was the main artist on the Masters of the Universe comic book that was released in the early 2000's to coincide with the animated series.
Emiliano currently does freelance toy design work for Hasbro and several other companies and is one of the founders of the Power and Honor Foundation. A group dedicated to the preservation of all the old Masters of the Universe artwork from its various incarnations.
The last of the Gooble hosts I was able to track down was Danielle Gelehrter. Danielle often filled in for other co-hosts when they couldn't make the show and became a permanent member of the group when Emiliano left the show.
In additon to Roast Gooble Dinner, Danielle hosts a Horror B-movie show similar in style to the old Elvira T-show as "Penny Dreadful." The show includes a bunch of supporting characters including her husband who plays a werewolf named "Garou."
Tanya Tate can be found on various sites around the web, though I must warn you, while she currently does a lot of "geek" related stuff with toys, comics, and games. She's a former adult actress and your google search might be NSFW.
Now for those of your who'd don't know, I am a He-man and the Masters of the Universe fan. I have been since the day that I walked into the Mervyn's toy department, yes readers in the 1980's Mervyn's department store had a LARGE toy department that rivaled Kay B Toys in it's day. Anyway, imaging it's 1982 and ten year old me walks into this store, and after years of little 3 3/4 star wars and micronauts figures I see this massive display of these hugely muscled barbarians, scarey cool monsters and even a sorceress thrown into the mix (come on Teela had a Cobra staff and hood, doesn't scream warrior to me).
What really got me going though was the artwork. Big bold Frank Frazetta style fantasy art of fantastic battle, fierce monsters, and THE CASTLE. Castle Greyskull, the art on the front of the box was enough to draw me in. Of course it wouldn't be until my birthday that year that I got any of these fantastic toys, but they were worth the wait. Never did get a Castle Greyskull, still don't have one to this day. Gonna have to fix that someday.
But speaking of that amazing artwork that drew me in. The original artwork for those Masters of the Universe toys was done by Rudy Obrero, and he was one of the first people I got to meet on my rounds through PowerCon.
The fantastic castle artwork I referred to sits over my right shoulder. I really wish I had the 200 dollars he was asking for it, but I had to settle for this picture instead. You can find more of Mr. Obrero's great work at: www.rudyobrero.com
As a kid, the He-man and the Masters of the Universe Cartoon was a big part of my life. Everyday after school I would get to see another adventure with my favorite heroes and villains. The action was toned down, the villains were cheesy, but it was great when you were a kid. One of the minds (and pens) behind that great show was Robert Lamb.
Mr. Lamb was nice enough to spend a good half an hour talking with me about the series, the studio, and the differences between the Filmation series and the Mike Young Productions series that aired in the early 2000's. We agreed that the 200X series had much better story lines and action, but lacked the amazing backgrounds that the Filmation series produced. Mr Lamb's website can be found here: http://www.robertartwriter.com/Home.html
While speaking to Mr. Lamb I also met James "Bustatoons" Eatock, who had his table set up next to Mr. Lambs. James has his own blog about the Filmation series which can be found here: http://bustatoons.blogspot.com/
It's a picture of Evil-Lyn, one of my favorite characters, from one of her featured episodes "The Shaping Staff".
It has actual animation notes written on it.
It's a piece of MOTU history that I now own!
A couple of years ago I came across this guy called Pixel Dan. Dan did reviews of the new Masters of the Universe Classics figures for www.he-man.org. He was also a member of another website called the pop culture network. I started watching their reviews and web shows and became a fan. I then started doing various pieces of fan art for them which they would often feature on their shows. Then Dan began co-hosting a MOTU Podcast called "Roast Gooble Dinner" which quickly became one of my favorites. Needless to say, one of the things that I was looking forward to doing at the PowerCon was meeting Pixel Dan and the other members of the podcast team, since they were the ones who were hosting the PowerCon itself. Well mission accomplished!
When I first walked up to them, there were several people in line to get pictures taken with them. Dan has become a bit of a celebrity in the MOTU collecting community and his wife Christina is his camera man and sometimes co-host on his own website: http://pixel-dan.com/
When they finally had a free moment, I walked up to Dan and said "I know you don't know my face, but here's a hint as to who I am." and I produced my sketchbook revealing sketches of the fan art I had done for him in the past. He laughed and said "Yeah I know exactly who you are now!"
Dan and his wife were extremely nice and I spoke to them often throughout the day.
Emiliano Santalucia.
Emiliano is a former co-host of Roast Gooble Dinner, and was the main artist on the Masters of the Universe comic book that was released in the early 2000's to coincide with the animated series.
Emiliano currently does freelance toy design work for Hasbro and several other companies and is one of the founders of the Power and Honor Foundation. A group dedicated to the preservation of all the old Masters of the Universe artwork from its various incarnations.
The last of the Gooble hosts I was able to track down was Danielle Gelehrter. Danielle often filled in for other co-hosts when they couldn't make the show and became a permanent member of the group when Emiliano left the show.
In additon to Roast Gooble Dinner, Danielle hosts a Horror B-movie show similar in style to the old Elvira T-show as "Penny Dreadful." The show includes a bunch of supporting characters including her husband who plays a werewolf named "Garou."
Another person that I met at the convention is the "face" of Masters of the Universe for Mattel. Scot "ToyGuru" Neitlich is the MOTU brand manager for Mattel, and unfortunately is the one that has to shoulder most of the heat from the fans about the problems with the current line.
He's a nice guy who goes out of the way to talk to the fans and be a part of the community. I feel bad because people who aren't in the know consider things to be his fault when in fact 80-90% of it is completely out of his control.
And of course what would a Convention like this be without Cosplayers!
I didn't get these ladies names, but they had some spot on costumes and I believe Cheetara (the one on the left) won first place in the costume contest.
Costumer and sometimes actor Johnny Bilson as Songster from the Powertour, and actress and Model Tanya Tate as Princess Adora.
You can find Johnny's costume work at http://havocstaff.50megs.com/
Tanya Tate can be found on various sites around the web, though I must warn you, while she currently does a lot of "geek" related stuff with toys, comics, and games. She's a former adult actress and your google search might be NSFW.
PowerCon/ThunderCon was a great experience and I want to do it again. However from what I understand it will be held in New York next year, so I probably won't be able to attend. However if it keeps going, it will most likely return to California in 2014. So here's hoping!
MY FIRST WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED
A couple of years ago Dakota, the daughter of the Author Andrean Jacobs, lost her Granny. Dakota was very young at the time and didn't understand the concept of death, and kept asking her mom when Granny was going to come back from Heaven. This book is the result of one of those conversations.
"Granny Come Back Down Here!" was written by Andrean Jacobs, and I was brought on as illustrator after another artist quoted her a number that was far out of her price range. Andrean saw my cartoon art style and thought that it would be prefect for her book, and asked if I would take on the project. There were some problems along the way, mainly at my end, but I eventually got the art done.
When the art was finished we placed a request on www.kickstarter.com to request funds to help get the book published. It took two tries, but we were able to raise the funds needed to get the book off the ground. A special thanks goes out to my father Doug Haywood and the many, many wonderful people who went above and beyond to make this book a reality.
At the publishing level I learned some new things that will be useful in future publishing projects. Things liked the difficulties in having color to the edge of the page, and lining up pictures that cover two pages. Not so fun stuff that everyone who does this thing has to learn. Fortunately it was something I learned as we went rather than having a huge glaring mistake in the book.
If you would like a copy of the book, Andrean is selling them for $10 each (plus shipping). Contact me and I will forward along her information or set up the sale myself.
And now I'll leave you with several images from the book.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Thoughts on my unpublished book
Yes, yay me! I wrote a book. Over the course of just over a year I managed to write a book that comes in just under 300 page, well, it might be more when it gets formatted to paperback size.
The book itself is sort of a coming of age tale that also involves vampires and werewolves. I could say that it is similar to Twilight, and in some ways it is. Reading Twilight was what helped me frame out the beginning of the book, but it is a combination of my own personal experiences, as well as what could have been with supernatural elements thrown in. I tried very hard to make this my own world, with its own rules for the supernatural, and don't worry Twilight haters, my vampires don't sparkle, they burst into flames.
I hope to write a sequel or two, and already have rough ideas on paper as to what will happen if they come to light. The second book will see the characters leave their semi secure and comfortable existence and travel the world in an adventure that could be described as Underworld meets the DaVinci Code. I've decided to do more research on the places that the characters will travel to before I write this book however, and hopefully this will show in the story.
What did I learn from writing this book? Well for starters, the story can take you places where you weren't planning to go, so while it's good to outline and plan things out ahead of time, don't be afraid to let the characters expand beyond your preconceived plans. The outcome might surprise you.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
A little about me
My name is Chris, and I'm an Artist and (so far) unpublished author. I've been drawing most of my life, but it only became part of my professional future in 2001, when I started studied Animation in Long Beach, California. In March 2004, I received an Associates Degree in Animation, and a second Assoiciate Degree in Multimedia.
What I like most in life are things that cater to my imagination. TV shows and movies, a lot of them animated, novels, role-playing games, video games, music, etc. I've always had a special love of fantasy, and I'm in the process of developing my own Epic tale involving animal characters in a fantasy setting.
I've done two interships during my studies, both involved working with Macromedia Flash for various Animation and web projects, and I enjoyed them immensly. Unfortunately neither company was hiring when it came time for my intership to end.
Currently I'm working for a living and struggling to survive in this horrible economy (isn't everyone?).
What I like most in life are things that cater to my imagination. TV shows and movies, a lot of them animated, novels, role-playing games, video games, music, etc. I've always had a special love of fantasy, and I'm in the process of developing my own Epic tale involving animal characters in a fantasy setting.
I've done two interships during my studies, both involved working with Macromedia Flash for various Animation and web projects, and I enjoyed them immensly. Unfortunately neither company was hiring when it came time for my intership to end.
Currently I'm working for a living and struggling to survive in this horrible economy (isn't everyone?).
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