Sail: Animazement

Showing posts with label Animazement. Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Sailing On: Winds of Change

Hello again!

No, I'm not dead. Things could be better but I'm certainly not dead lol.

A lot has happened since my last blog update! I'm not talking about small changes either. There have been quite a few large ones.

The Job Front

As most of you know I was laid off last year. I didn't manage to make art a career before my job at the gun factory left. Supposedly I had until August of this year, but they decided almost last minute that my last day of work there would be December 13th 2014. This was especially frustrating for me because it meant that I would be stuck looking for employment while five months pregnant. Even in this day and age, when everyone speaks of equality, you can expect to have a very hard time finding work as a pregnant woman.

Step into my office...

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about being unemployed for very long. I found another job at a fab shop only a week after being laid off. I rather enjoyed my work. Even though the benefits were lacking and the pay wasn't what I had gotten used to at my previous job, the people were nice and the atmosphere was very relaxed. I couldn't have found a more perfect place to work while expecting. Even more helpful was the fact that I picked up skills beyond working as a gunsmith. My boss even bought me books to study up on, which was very nice of him. It wasn't without its struggles though. I have a feeling some of the guys at the shop thought I was a sympathy hire. Hell, even if I did get hired out of sympathy for my situation I am totally not complaining. For someone without a college degree, experience is almost priceless. I was able to get away from solely working in the gun industry.

Don't get me wrong, it's so cool to be able to call yourself a gunsmith. Unfortunately it's such a niche occupation. Sure, this is the dirty South, there's a gun shop on every corner that would hire a gunsmith. But that's the thing, most places only need one or two and aside from the gun shop or a gun manufacturer, no employer around really cares how well you deal with guns. And the politics! Ugh! It gets exhausting to hear it around the work place every time some politician gets too big for his pants and decides to wage war on your way of life. For most people, it's not every day that some political dingbat reveals some plan to destroy their living, but for a gunsmith it's a regular thing.

Anyway, just when you thought life couldn't throw me another curve ball, right after the birth of my adorable baby girl, the company I worked for announced that it was moving away as well. If I hadn't already been contacted by an old coworker about a job, I probably would have been laid off for the second time within the course of a year.

Which brings me to where I am now, working quality control at a factory that deals in plastics. (truthfully I'm not feeling it... but it's work.) I'm still determined to do this art thing for a living, but until then it looks like I'm stuck with the smell of burned plastic every day.

BABY!

Alexandria Michele Altenkirch. Born April 3, 2015

So the last time you heard from me I was expecting a baby. Well she's here! And she's the most adorable baby on the face of the planet! (Oh no I'm not biased, not at all.)

I will admit that I was afraid of the whole birthing thing. I wasn't looking forward to that particular detail but it wasn't exactly avoidable. Thank God for modern medicine though! For the most part I feel like I got off easy. However, once the epidural wore off I wanted it back. Oh, the things no one ever tells you about having a baby. Specifically: the recovery. I thought, nah, I don't need six weeks, I can come back to work after like... three.


Now I can be close while I work	!

Needless to say, that definitely didn't happen. When they tell you six weeks of recovery, they mean it. I needed all of it. During my recovery I did manage to do a little artwork, finally breaking my artless streak, which pretty much lasted the whole duration of my pregnancy.

But hey! Look what I got out of it: A little girl lovingly named Alexandria. I love her to death, she's just so adorable and making her smile is the highlight of my day! She's growing like a weed and at two months old she's already outgrown some of her little outfits. Being a parent is something I never really saw myself doing and being responsible for another life is just terrifying sometimes but I think I'm getting the hang of this Mom thing.

Convention Update

Although I had plans to go, I didn't ever actually make it to MAGfest. I did, however, make it to Animazement again this year.

Unfortunately this was the worst year at my home convention yet. It seemed that I was somehow just invisible. I had next to no sales, I was lucky to break even. Everything that could have gone wrong did. I already hadn't been doing well in sales (the first time ever I made less on a Saturday than on Friday.) and to make matters even worse, a friend of mine knocked a cup of coffee over and it spilled all over the remaining prints. It was a total disaster.

This was quite literally the best part of the weekend.

I actually had more fun exploring Raleigh than I had at the actual con. I don't know, somewhere I feel like maybe I lost the Anime crowd. I don't watch many of those shows anymore and the ones that I do watch are pretty obscure or just old. I mean Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Knights of Sidonia (ah netflix...), Utawarerumono? Anyone ever hear of them? Psycho Pass is probably the newest and most mainstream thing I've watched and actually liked. Where did Rurouni Kenshin ever go? I still see some Inuyasha hanging around, Sailor Moon never really seems to lose popularity but I was never really a fan. Full Metal Panic! Anyone? I feel like I haven't seen anything for that in years. I never really saw much fan art for it anyway.

So yeah... maybe I'm just not with it anymore. I've decided to shift focus, and thanks to a fellow artist alley goer, I managed to sign up in time to make it into artist alley at NC Comic Con in November this year. Gonna be on the look out for more conventions to sign up for. Maybe NYCC one year? ;D (I can dream.)

Art Updates!

I the job that I held up until I had Alex was so laid back that I did a couple of sketches. They're not my usual fare but maybe I'll paint them at some point. I did always tell my grandma I'd paint an owl for her one day. I've been working on my own line work for a while now. I'm actually pretty happy looking at some of my art. I mean, it's not perfect but the last three pieces I completed were completely my own. Making a little progress there!

I've also picked up a project, which I'm currently working on with Nga. I'm not going to go into major detail about it but I'll release a little information as I get permission to. It's gonna be awesome! So far it's hard work trying to balance a full time job, a new baby and art. I'll have to do it if I want to keep it up though.

I know I introduce myself as a colorist most often, but I have a confession to make... I have never actually colored frames. I'm not sure exactly how to keep colors consistent. It's alright everyone involved knows this is really my first try so It's bound to be a learning experience.

Now that you've read this wall of text (or at least some of it.) I will leave the blog open for questions! If you're curious about anything (so long as it's appropriate) please feel free to ask! Anything from favorite music to what programs and tools I use for my artwork. I'll do my best to answer questions Thursday of next week if there's enough interest.

For now, I'll leave you guys with a few of my newest sketches and artworks. Remember, I am on more social media than just blogger! Check the websites and contact info tab on my blog to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, DeviantART, and a few others.

Until next week!

Spark, out.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Life: It Happened

So for those of you that were reading regularly, I am sorry for the long absence. Life struck and I have been nowhere close to a computer for quite some time. The past two months have been absolutely inundated with large events. So we'll start at the beginning. This may be a pretty long blog post. Just a warning.

BABY NEWS!

Some of you may already know this bur for those of you who don't, here it is! Around the same time as Otakon I found out some really important, and kind of unexpected news. I'm pregnant! My husband and I will be expecting our first child around the first of April next year. That has definitely preoccupied my mind quite a bit. Not that I'm panicking or that I don't want kids. They were going to happen sooner or later. While I say that this was a surprise, it wasn't exactly an accident.

So far I'm around five months along and we already know the sex of the baby. It's gonna be a girl! We've got a first name picked out, the last name is obvious, but a middle name isn't really coming so easy. My husband wants to use my middle name, but I don't like that idea. I didn't like that both of my parents name me after themselves, I didn't want to do the same to my own child. So the middle name is still up in the air. (suggestions in the comments are greatly appreciated! I'd love to hear some!)

Little Alexandria Altenkirch

For a while I was also worried that I would be a detached parent. I'm not sure if it's due to my upbringing or what, but I have a tendency to be very... distant. I thought, "what if I see my baby as just a thing? Not a tiny human, but a thing that simply cries, barfs, and poops everywhere? Wouldn't that make me a terrible parent? What if I'm just as awkward around my own child as I am other children and even adults?"

The last ultrasound definitely pushed me a little further over that hurdle, as well as the fact that I can feel her moving now. I've become quite paranoid of anything happening to her, even if she does like to randomly assault my bladder. Nothing quite compares to that ultrasound where you can see your baby's little head, and her hands and feet. You can see your baby in real time respond to things happening outside your belly and it really starts to put things into a different perspective for you.

Over all I am definitely excited, just a little anxious for the future. I will do the best I can to be a good parent and I know my husband will too. I couldn't be happier for the supportive friends and the few family members that I have that have been very supportive as well.

CAR ACCIDENT

Before....

Now this one is sort of embarrassing. I wrecked my car. It all happened in the dumbest way possible too. I ran a red light and smacked another vehicle and to this day I couldn't tell you how in the hell I missed the fact that the light was red.

Luckily it wasn't a terrible accident. The car is still drivable and shockingly everything on it still works even though it suffered frame damage. The air bags didn't go off, I didn't even get a bruise from my seat belt and the baby is just fine. I'll be forever grateful that the car has some amazingly strong brakes!

This happened at the beginning of September so I wasn't even pregnant enough to show yet, which is probably a good thing. All in all it wasn't a super traumatizing experience and no one suffered any injury.

However I've been pretty damn depressed about it all. This was my first ever vehicle and it was still functioning well and it still looked perfectly fine up until I wrecked it. The car is nearly 16 years old and I've owned it for the past eight years. I used to wash and wax this car at least once a month. I could shine it to such a finish, that the sunlight reflecting off of it could blind you. I was proud of my car and I had been through a lot with it.

Now it looks like it's had a stroke. I bought a new bumper for it, which has no paint on it and it's lopsided due to the frame being twisted ever so slightly. The hood, and the headlights are both transplants from junkyard vehicles, one of them is foggier than the other ... holy crap this poor vehicle! I feel so terrible for having wrecked it. Mechanically, the only thing that was wrong with it was a busted radiator, which was replaced. I still drive it and I still talk to it and love it, but looking makes me feel so guilty! The inside is also a mess now, and still filled car parts that have yet to be replaced...

I did take the time off to go get the parts from the junkyard myself. I normally go to the junk yard with my husband but this time it was my mess and I didn't feel like dragging him with me. Being a petite woman in a junk yard, alone, now that was an experience in itself, which I may post an entry about later. The way some of the men there acted upon seeing me you'd think they had just found a unicorn.

JOB LEAVING SOONER THAN EXPECTED

Yep, it is sad, and it has some terrible timing considering the baby. I somehow knew that this would happen though. I didn't want to believe it but, as my grandmother always said, "that's the way the ball bounces." Work was getting pretty slow. We were supposed to focus on a new product this year. So much counted on these new products, and they never worked. Last year work was plentiful, sometimes almost too much to handle. We worked overtime until we were sick of it. There were days during the winter that we never saw sunlight because we quite literally worked from sun up, to sun down.

We were supposed to launch something like two completely new products to keep us busy up until the lease on our building was finished in August of 2015. They had hired a large number of temps to deal with this ramp-up in production, which should have happened as early as last year. To put it bluntly, it never even almost happened. The products in question still don't work to this day. In the course of a year, we went from making millions monthly, to losing hundreds of thousands every month.

Due to this massive, corporate failure to function, my job will not longer exist as of December 13th, 2014. Yes folks, that's about two weeks from now. I think someone needed to explain to some of these guys that "give or take a few months" shouldn't translate into "give or take nearly an entire year." If these morons were competent enough to plan more than two weeks ahead, this could have been avoided and I wouldn't be looking for a new job while nearly six months pregnant. Your actions sometimes have adverse effects on other people kids, remember that.

Even though I really want to wash my hands clean of this company forever, I did have an interview for a graphic design position with them and maybe I'll get it. The opportunity is great. I mean let's be honest here, I didn't even expect to get an interview. With my lack of experience as well as the fact that I have no college degree I'm shocked that I'm even in the running. The design team seem like very nice people, and the interview I had with them was a far cry from the stiff, stuck up, know-it-all attitudes of most of the corporate people I had dealt with already. I had to give some real thought to answering questions and giving my take on the scenarios presented to me. If that kind of critical thinking is involved for this job then I have a feeling that I would love it.

Unfortunately, as well as the negative connotation I already have for this company, moving six hours away doesn't appeal to me either. I don't want to uproot my husband and make him start over. Again. He's not from here, he's only been living in this area for about eight years now, and now that he's established with friends and my family, I feel like it would be unfair to him to make him move.

Even with all the negatives, I don't want to let my fear of the unknown keep me from finally having something that could create a more stable and enjoyable future, not only for myself, but for my family. If I could chase this opportunity, I could actively support myself, my upcoming child, possibly even my spouse too. We wouldn't have to go without and I could finally break out of treading the poverty line. There's also the hope that once the company consolidates, maybe they'll finally get their shit together and things will get better. Seems like a win/win situation but there's always more to it isn't there?

This is extremely conflicting to me. I'm really not sure what to do. It's overwhelming at times and this would explain quite a lot why I've been lacking in motivation lately. I've been quite depressed and conflicted and I haven't finished a single art piece since the beginning of August.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

I do have a few things to look forward to. I had applied for MAGfest earlier in the year. I was wait-listed but it seems that I may be going anyway! A friend of mine scored a table and has offered to share that, as well as her hotel room. I couldn't be happy enough to have such awesome friends! I'll keep everyone updated as I get more info on this.

http://magfest.org/ visit it.

This is a bit of a pick-me-up since I'm excited to get back on the convention trail so early. It's also a bit of a wake up call. I need to get some more artwork done! I still have a commission waiting in the wings to be finished and once I finish that I will be focusing on painting. Actual painting, with acrylic paint on canvas. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with them yet but I have a stock pile of traditional art supplies from the years of Christmas gifts I have yet to use. I should really stop wasting it.

The originals will be available in art auctions at conventions this coming year!

I won't be attending any conventions, February through April, due to baby. I've been advised not to travel past seven months. This does leave me time to apply for Animazement again at the end of may and I would love nothing more than to do Artist Alley at Animazement for a fourth year in a row. It is by far my favorite convention to attend.

Keep an eye out! I plan to start live streaming again in the near future as well! This will probably especially pick up after the holiday season once I'm out of this dreadful apartment and into something more spacious and better kept.

Once again, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who reads, for reading. It does feel better to get some of this stuff off my chest sometimes.

Hopefully my next entry will have some more artwork for you guys!

Until next week!

Spark, out.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Animazement 2014 Con Report!

Well that was fast!

The convention came and went a lot quicker than I imagined it would. A lot of work went into this and I'm happy to say that we did manage to pull it off. It was a lot of hard work and plenty of frustration at first but by the time we finished setting up on Thursday night I was feeling a little better about the whole thing.

Open For Business!

The stand looked awesome and went together very well. By far it was the best set up I had ever had for an artist alley. Things weren't really easy though and I didn't do as well as I did last year. I feel like this mostly had to do with my location. Artist alley was very, very large this year. That alone didn't bode well for some artists. A lot of competition, albeit friendly.

For those that got stuck in the little alcove off to the side, that location was simply awful for business. With that location people had to actually seek you out in order to really find you. It wasn't just me it was everyone unfortunate enough to be stuck in this barren corner.

I don't really have a picture to accurately display my frustration at being stuck here. This was taken before things really got busy. From the balcony, after things picked up, you could really tell that most of the traffic was through the middle and the little alcove I was stuck in got very heavily ignored.

In a lot of cases, there were people that came by my table that wanted to buy prints, but they had no more money to do so. They often told me that we were the last table that they saw in the alley, and they had spent their budget elsewhere before even noticing that this little cubby hole even existed.

My very lonely table in BFE

As you can see in this next picture here, this is my table from the entrance to the alley. I had to zoom in on it. You can kinda see my husband sitting there, conversing with an off duty police officer that had been paid to provide more security for the convention.

I resorted to a few semi-desperate tactics to up foot traffic in the area. At some point on Saturday I got so frustrated with the lack of attention that I left my husband to watch the table, and I went half way up the stairs in between the escalators to yell at people coming down into the alley.

When I say yell I don't mean angrily. It was something to the effect of "Hello everyone! Artist alley is really big this year please don't leave until you've visited everyone, including that dark corner over there! I know it's scary looking, but be brave!" I even asked a couple of Jedi if I could borrow their mind tricks to sell prints. I'm usually not that outgoing so I surprised myself a little with how much nerve I managed to get up to draw attention to myself.

Table Graffiti

People didn't really react terribly to me, most of them were intent on giving me a high five while they rode down the escalator. As luck would have it, this bold move did increase foot traffic to the area and I sold to quite a number of people that I specifically remember seeing on the staircase. Things picked up Saturday and even more on Sunday so not all hope was lost.

Another trick that I employed again this year that worked well last year, was the table graffiti. I got a number of metallic pens and a black table cloth and let people go at it. This time it didn't get quite as full but there were more colors to play with. It was pretty colorful by the time we left but that was the plan. No one drew anything offensive on it, so all's well that ends well.

As for the art auction, the two pieces I submitted did pretty well! They were both collaborative works, the lines were by my good friend, Nga Nguyen, and the colors were by yours truly. You know, the usual stuff. Upon entering your works into the auction they are subjected to a competition. We've had pieces that placed every single year, whether it be second or third place. This year, though, we finally got first! It was a pretty big shocker too!

Of the two posters I put in auction, I expected the Sailor Moon piece to go for more than the original character. After all, fan art does usually do better than anything else. Apparently I'm just a backwards sort of person. The auction piece that made the most money and won the prizes was actually the original that was submitted. The winner of the auction for the print of "Angelic" purchased the print for his mother and had me sign it "to a loving mom."

He seemed very pleased with it and that made me happy. It's always nice to know when someone really appreciates the work you do! That's why, despite the bad location, despite the long days involved, I found it nearly impossible to have a bad time. Even when I thought that I might not break even and after I realized that I left all of my 8x10 prints at home, I couldn't help but to enjoy myself. I even did a few sketches for people. I had two people at least buy four prints or more in a shot. I also did an art trade with an artist I watch on DeviantArt.

Hopefully next year will be a little better. From what I've heard it seems like they're going to do all they can to avoid the cubby hole next year, and maybe even open up a door in between the alley and the dealer room so that the artist alley can get more traffic and not be quite so isolated.

Despite our awful location and little traffic, we still managed to turn a profit and for that I'm pretty darn grateful. I was also grateful that my husband went with me. He was very supportive through the whole thing, even when I was beginning to doubt myself, and I really enjoyed hanging out with him the whole weekend. We made a great team of course! We are married after all.

Now to get ready for Otakon and hope for better luck there.

Spark, out.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Ready For Animazement!

Hey guys, sorry I missed that last update. I was busy with a number of things (job hunting being one of them. I may actually have a new job that can pay my rent and give me enough spare time for more artwork. Hopefully.)

So I'm totally over the pre-convention jitters. Well, mostly. I am actually prepared much earlier than usual! This weekend I got down to business. All of my printing is done as well as my banner and my display. I wanted something better this year than the flimsy pvc pipe stand that I had last year. Quite honestly it sucked and looked absolutely terrible. I don't plan on using so much masking tape to hold the display prints up this year either. That looked so sloppy and unprofessional.

Anyway, I wanted to make it out of pvc pipe again but the drawing I made was a little complicated. That stuff is usually pretty cheap, which makes it an ideal material. I did the math though, and after I found that it would cost me $75 in pvc pipe I decided that maybe that wasn't the most efficient and cost effective idea. I over-engineered the crap out of that stand. It needed to be sturdy enough to hold up prints, a dry erase board, and a banner. It probably would have worked but I the money was a bit outrageous and there are better options for cheaper.


Our 4 foot by 2.5 foot banner.... and my wedding cake topper haha.


Totally Over-Engineered. Would have been a good stand though...

I eventually went with those wire mesh storage cubes that a lot of people seem to use for stands now days. After finding some of my own and getting them home, I can see why people use them. They are sturdy and there's so many ways you can arrange them. My display is gonna rock this year! I may still end up buying some pvc pipe and some zip ties, I need to hoist my banner up over the stand somehow. The higher up the better. After all, I am stuck in a corner and getting attention is important.

I also got this super awesome board. It's a black dry erase board that you use with neon colored dry erase markers. Yes! This is dry erase! I had no Idea that they even made these until I found them in Walmart. I'm not sure that these will be my final prices, I just had to try it out when I got it home. It was too cool. I plan to attach it to one side of my stand at eye level. I may even get another one for the other side to keep the commission list updated and let people know when their commissions are finished. Haven't decided yet.

As you can tell I used to work in the restaurant... they bugged me do the feature board every day for this reason.

So maybe I lied I'm not COMPLETELY ready for the convention yet. The to-do list is definitely a lot smaller than it used to be though. I have to trim my prints. They turned out great by the way! I'm so excited about it! I finally did enough research to save my print files in a printer friendly fashion. The colors turned out amazing and I am very happy with the quality of the paper I got them on. I even printed everything for less than the budget I had set aside for printing, which is also a plus.

I want to print out one more poster though. I will be putting two prints into the art auction this year instead of just one like in previous years. One is an original concept and the other is fan art. I thought that was fitting. I only ever print out ONE 16x20 print to sell of each piece. There will never be another print that size for sale of any of these again.

Sailor Moon was kind of a no-brainer. I did a quick poll on DeviantArt anyway and it won out over three other pieces to be in the art auction this year.

As for the original, I just had it printed on a whim because I liked it. The brown haired angel in this picture is a character from a really old story I had dreamed up back in high school. She does have a name, and her name is Catriona. Nga did an absolutely wonderful job capturing her character in her pencil work! It was a joy to color.

I've adapted Catriona's character for E20XX like most of the characters from that old story plot. The characters were just too cool to abandon even if the story I came up with sucked. What could you expect though, I was sixteen. As I grew up, so did the characters. It was almost like they outgrew that story.

Hopefully other people will like her as much as I do. I sold an original character last year in auction which was a success, far more successful than I thought it would be. It gave me the warm fuzzies when the lady who won the auction brought it by the table to have me physically sign it. Her daughter found me on DeviantArt and sent me a picture of it hanging up on the wall in their house. I cried happy tears.

This will probably be the last I write about the convention before I actually go. I only have two weeks until the con. Since I'm mostly done with the preparations, expect some sketch entries into the blog pretty soon along with my current works in progress. Got some overdue commissions to finish.

If all goes well I will be updating again on my normal schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Until then thanks for the continued support it means a lot to me.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Some Missions Accomplished: Con Schedule

This year I've registered for artist alley at four conventions on the east coast and I haven't been turned down from one! I'm rather excited and it gives me a little more hope that perhaps art really is the way to go. I'm really glad that my first artist alley experience didn't deter me from trying again. (that is a story for another time.)

First was Ichibancon in Concord NC. That one was the first weekend of January. It was a bit of a disappointment, I broke even and that was about it. I have three more to make up for it though!

Here they are:

Animazement - Raleigh, NC - May 23-25
Otakon - Baltimore, MD - August 8-10
Anime Weekend Atlanta - Atlanta GA - September 26-28

I just heard back from Anime Weekend Atlanta the other night, which kinda spurred this blog entry. I'm still on the fence there. They said I've been accepted but wait-listed so that one is still to be announced.

I'm super excited about Animazement this year. Last year I gave artist alley a second chance and it was amazing. I had the best time, met a lot of awesome people, and of course I made quite a bit of money. I had a wedding to pay for, I took a gamble on this and it really paid off.

Not exactly professional but it was my first real attempt... and look, I look so happy!

I don't even have a month left until Animazement this year, which means that I am already waayyy far into the planning phase. One genius idea that I had last year that I will do again this year is that black table cloth. I let people draw on it with metallic sharpie and it got quite decorated. I only had to scribble out one thing - which, the artist next to me confessed to drawing while she was tipsy the night before.

This was the table cloth by the time we packed up to leave Sunday afternoon.

I was surprised at how well the table cloth worked to get attention. People drew all over it, and while they doodled on it, their friends would hang out with the prints staring them right in the face. In some instances, people would run off and get their friends, then drag them back to my table so that their friend could draw on it too. Best. Idea. Ever.

I've already gotten the seating chart for Animazement this year and unfortunately I don't have prime real estate this time.

I'll be at table W30! If any of happen to be there, by any chance, I'd totally like to hear from you!

I have my print line up for this year already picked out as well. It features artwork all my own as well as collaborative works. (Profits are split for collaborations.) Also note that some of these are signed "Michele A" and others are signed "Michele Wilson." I got married last October and my maiden name is "Wilson." This has confused some people recently, hopefully that clears it up.

Prints For Sale at Animazement: