Textcast: Kotoricon Wrap-Up Edition

IT’S A WRAP!

Kotoricon came and went and I left more motivated than ever before.

Lets recap this shindig shall we?

I wanted to get there in time to catch the Arcana Comics panel since Arcana is a real comic book company that I have seen with big booths at cons and I wanted to get any and all advice they could give me.  I wasn’t disappointed that’s for sure. VP of Arcana Mark Poulton, Dexter Weeks and Steve Sistelli who held the Arcana panel were telling me their story from where I am now to how they got to where they are and it provided infinite amounts of insight. They gave me tips about copyrighting, anatomy, inking, and how to submit work to the publisher and much more. They told me all about how their book Koni Waves is being optioned in Hollywood and all about the experience of San Diego Comic-Con. These guys are doing exactly what I want to be doing and any advice they could give me was priceless.  I mean these guys created the AND1 logo!

After the panel I got to talk to them one on one and told them all about Synergy and gave them the new postcards to which they replied “Now THATS a card!”  They also told me to go get my pencilled Synergy pages and my portfolio so they could check it out.

This is where in my head I freaked out a little. A publisher/studio wants to see my work, I know my work isn’t worthy of their time and could be 10 times better but I knew they would help me out and offer some insight.

I brought my pages over to the Arcana booth and the checked em out…these pros actually seemed to like it! They commented on how nice my costume designs were and gave me some inking tips. Steve, Mark, and Dex didn’t have to give me a minute of their time and instead they gave me all the time in the world and I can’t thank them enough. Making this connection and going home would have made my day a great success all by itself but alas…I still had to do a panel after this!

I think if it wasn’t for the events that transpired earlier in the day I would have been nervous but I actually went in pretty confident.

I started off the Panel and noticed most of my crowd had been wearing hats with animal ears which of course I found pretty funny. So I had to bust on them…they took it good and I think it started off the panel on a good lighthearted note fo sho.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I started talking about what got me into comics and art and just told them everything that got me into it and some of my first comics. I even brought some of my first art books…yikes.

 

 

 

 

 

 Oh and half way through my panel Dexter from the Arcana booth came over and watched with another artist Brielle. I was pretty much in full on HOLY CRAP mode at this point…but I had to keepgoing for all those girls in the animal hats dang it!

So I told them to come up and draw their own characters on the dry erase board…so everyone (for the most part) came up…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the final results…(I did the quickie Synergy of course)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then told them to come up with stories for some of the characters and emphasized the importance of story and how one picture can tell a whole story…the sad girl drawing was a perfect example of this and the girl who did it just happened to hve a whole story behind it already. The group (including Dexter) also helped come up with a story for the pikachu-ish drawing and we all cameup with pepe the churro thrower which was definitely original thats for sure.

From there I went into the site and who Synergy is and what I hope happens with him in the future…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also showed off the Vega Valley Forum and how it works and everything on the SmartBoard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Overall Kotoricon was amazing…I made a ton of new friends, met an amazing group of professionals, and had a lot of fun…I cant even begin to say how motivated the whole experience has made me…Lets just say I was off for MLK day and I spent it finishing off another page in the book!

 

 

 

  

I want to thank everyone who came out to my panel you guys fuel this engine…and a big thanks to Steve, Mark and Dexter…you guys are awesome.

Check out their site at koniwaves.com!

Until Next Time…

~John