Monthly Archives: March 2009

Going to BotCon

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Botcon 09 Exclusive - KupWell, it’s official as I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into my obession with Transformers. Jessica and I are set to go to BotCon 2009 in Pasadena, CA.

It’s one thing to bake a cake, it’s one thing to take tons of photos of toys, it’s an entirely different matter when you start attending conventions.

This will actually be my first convention of any type that I will have attended. Never done the comic book thing, nor sci fi thing. We did go to a small 3D photography convention during a trip through the midwest last year, but that was Jessica’s idea and quite small.

You know you are going to a big convention when:

  1. There are exclusive toys
  2. When said toys sell out within a couple of days
  3. When registering for the convention takes several hours of faxing due to demand jamming the lines
  4. When packaged admission is several hundred dollars
  5. They are premiering the toys from the new movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I was lucky enough to get my form in time to get into the lucrative Thursday customizing class. Oh yeah, I get to learn how to make regular toys into custom toys. That is really gonna help with my addiction.

So for 4 days at the end of May, Jessica and I will be heading out to Pasadena to further fuel my obsession with toys from my youth. BotCon being in Pasadena this year is actually fortuitous, since we don’t need to fly to get the convention. I actually don’t think we would have bothered had we been required to fly. So most likely this will be my first and last BotCon… maybe…

First works from Two-Dimensional Design Class

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I finally got around to shooting then posting my recent completed works from the art class I’m taking. I’m currently taking ART112 — Two-Dimensional Design at Mesa Community College.

All the subject matter of the course is non-objective, so the end results are just shapes and forms. None of the pieces are supposed to look like real objects/things.

The first pieces were 5x6” Figure and Field cards. The positive or negative forms had to be gestalt, and these pieces were completed with black construction paper on watercolor paper.

Figure and Field Figure and Field Figure and Field Figure and Field Figure and Field

Two of those cards were then enlarged to 10x12” and painted with black gouache on watercolor paper. The professor found my geometric patterns more interesting hence why the larger piece is a bit more simple.

Figure and Field Painting Figure and Field Painting

The next assignment was for Pattern, and the final piece was a completed set of rotational patterns. Taking a 2″ equilateral triangle, I took a design and began to replicate it by rotating it on a center axis. This generated a hexagon which was then copied further. The final piece is black sharpie on drawing paper and is about 16x20”.

Pattern - Rotational Pattern - Rotational

The final assignment was Rhythm. This one took the most effort to brainstorm for a set of acceptable pieces and I’m quite happy with the final result. Each subject is 6x8” and is painted with black gouache on watercolor paper. The detail work was very hard but I’m happy with how clean the piece is overall given the size of the brush I was using.

Rhythm Paintings Rhythm Paintings Rhythm Paintings Rhythm Paintings

So I’m happy that I was able to finally get some organic forms and curves in the final piece to contrast the geometrically-simple earlier works.

In addition to the images above, a gallery of all my ART112 work so far is available.