CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2008 Guest Badges – 2 of 4

We’re counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8, sharing more art I’ve done for badges, specifically for the massive number of Guests of Honor of CONvergence 2008.

#CVG2008 – Father Geek

#CVG2008 – Eric Flint

#CVG2008 – Harry Knowles

Jay “Father Geek” Knowles is Harry Knowles’ Dad and quite the fascinating character himself. I tried to thematically connect the art for his and Harry’s badge.

This was the third CONvergence visit for Eric Flint, so I felt fairly safe in using Connie to make a reference to Eric’s 1632 book series.

Harry Knowles of Aint It Cool News – Thor to Father Geek’s Odin. I really loved how these two badges came out.

#CVG2008 – Kenneth Hite

#CVG2008 – Dr James Kakalios

#CVG2008 – John Kovalic

Kenneth Hite’s badge is actually based on an inside joke from a dinner conversation at Giordano’s Pizza in Chicago. It involved Swamp Thing re-imagined as Flor-El, last plant of Krypton. This would be his not-so-convincing secret identity.

You can find physics professor Dr. James Kakalios in his most private moments cursing the name of Reed Richards.

John Kovalic’s badge references our Dr. Blink character. I’d still love to see this art used as a book cover…

Still more to come…

If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.

CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2008 Guests – 1 of 4

We’re counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8, sharing more art I’ve done for badges, this time for the Guests of Honor of CONvergence 2008.

So CONvergence 2008 was the tenth year of the convention. To celebrate, we decided to do two crazy things:

1) Instead of the usual Friday-Sunday 3-day convention, we decided to start the convention Thursday and do a 4-day extravaganza. At the time, this was intended to be a one-year-only change.

2) We decided to bring back a ton of our favorite guests from past years. Our budget and logistical realities meant we couldn’t bring back everyone we’d have liked, but we brought back a bunch! We only had two new guests in 2008, the rest were people we knew we had a great time with, and we were excited to have be a part of our Year 10 celebration!

So I decided to ad a personal third crazy thing.

3) Continue the tradition of doing individual badge art for each Guest of Honor.

Yeah, I could have just re-used badge art from a prior year for our returning guests, but aside from the fact that it would have felt like a cop-out, word got back to me that some of the guests we had lined up to return had expressed their excitement to see what I had drawn for their badge art this time. So I almost had no choice! The one thing I had going for me was that I had free reign to use Connie if I was stuck for any other idea, as the returning guests would already be familiar with our convention mascot!

#CVG2008 – Crist Ballas

#CVG2008 – Trace Beaulieu

#CVG2008 – Robert Burnett

First up, Crist Ballas, make-up man extraordinaire. I learned that the Jack Pierce make-up for Frankenstiein’s Monster was one of Crist’s favorites and an inspiration, so that took care of Crist!

Trace Beaulieu’s badge featured not only his Dr. Clayton Forrester character from MST3K, but I have the ORIGINAL Dr. Clayton Forrester from War of the Worlds looking on with disapproval.

Robert Meyer Burnett is a huge Clockwork Orange fan, and his production company is called Ludovico Technique for the rehabilitation process from that film. Connie doesn’t seem to mind being subjected to it!

#CVG2008 – Larry Dixon

#CVG2008 – Daren Dochterman

#CVG2008 – Mark Evanier

Larry Dixon his a big owl fan and he does work with raptor centers, which was the thought behind his badge.

Daren Dochterman is a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was rather pleased with this design. I try not to over-use lens flares, but this was one time where it seemed justified…

Among the things Mark Evanier is known for, two of the biggest are his association with Jack Kirby and the other is writing for TV animation, which includes work for Hanna Barbara and a role in the creation of Scrappy Doo.

More of the 2008 Guest of Honor badges are coming in the next post…

If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.

CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2008

I’m counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8 this year, and sharing some highlights from past year’s badge art that I’ve done for the convention.

CONvergence 2008 was our tenth convention, and our only real theme was a celebration of ten years of CONvergence!

#CVG2008 Ages 5 & Under Badge

#CVG2008 – Ages 6-17 Badge

#CVG2008 – Adult Badge

I was plenty busy with Guest of Honor badges that year (more on that in the next post), so I used some artwork by regular CONvergence contributor Lou Frank on the 5 and Under and Teen registration badges. That’s his line art incorporated into my badge layout, with my own artwork on the Adult badge. I was going for something fairly clean and elegant for Year 10, and I think you can see that in the design.

Up to this point the Board of Directors had featured in the sketches and/or videos that began Opening and Closing Ceremonies at CONvergence each year, and we knew that Year 10 was our grand finale before turning that task over to a committee of talented writers and performers that weren’t necessarily on the board. We staged this crazy big musical number that featured Tim Wick as Austin Powers, which ended with him running into the hotel and transitioned into Tim entering Mainstage still in costume from the sketch to act as Emcee for Opening Ceremony. So we figured that Austin needed his own registration badge, which you can see below.

The epic video is available on YouTube in two parts:

Part One – The Dr Evil Prologue
Part Two – The Musical Number

#CVG2008 – Exec Badge

#CVG2008 – Finance Badge

#CVG2008 – Director Badge

The 2008 Exec on Duty Badge was a re-purposing of artwork I had done for a Progress Report cover that year. Lou Frank’s artwork appeared again on the Finance Badge. The Director Badge for that year featured some vintage artwork by me – the earliest drawing of Connie! Note the extra-long antenna, the two low-set arm buttons, and the rarely-used telescoping arm!

And finally, the ConCom badge went horizontal that year, so it could hang behind the other vertical badges on a lanyard and still be seen.

If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.

CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2007 Guest Badges

It’s another 2-post day as I count down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8, sharing more art I’ve done for badges for the Guests of Honor of CONvergence 2007.

#CVG2007- Lois McMaster Bujold

#CVG2007 - Emily Hagins

#CVG2007 - Brian Keene

For author Lois McMaster Bujold I broke my rule again about not using Connie on badges for first-time Guests of Honor. When I break that rule it’s usually a sign of desperation. The four hands are a reference to the Quaddies from Lois’ work.

Emily Hagins is a remarkable filmmaker who wrote, produced and directed the zombie movie Pathogen at age 12. She’s still going strong, working on new films!

I hated to go to the “zombie well” yet again, but it seemed appropriate for The Rising author Brian Keene.

#CVG2007 - John Kovalic

#CVG2007 - Wally Wingert

#CVG2007 - Bernie Wrightson

John Kovalic’s badge featured a notoriously over-crowded page from the Dr. Blink comic written by John, drawn by me, and lettered and colored by Melissa Kaercher.

Wally Wingert’s badge referenced his role as one of the Almighty Tallest from Invader Zim, and his obsessive love of the Adam West Batman series (a man after my own heart!).

Bernie Wrigthson’s badge refers to the author page on the first printing of Bernie’s magnificent illustrated edition of Frankenstein, which gave a full bio of Bernie including where he resided with his two dogs, but merely said of the author “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is dead and has no dogs.”

If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.

CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2007

I’m counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8 this year, and sharing some highlights from past year’s badge art that I’ve done for the convention.

The CONvergence 2007 theme was Creature Feature – a celebration the non-human characters in Sci-Fi and Fantasy. A lot of people heard “Creature Feature” and thought the theme was about horror, but it was really about everything from monsters to muppets and triffids to tribbles!

#CVG2007- 5 and Under

#CVG2007 - Teen Badge

#CVG2007 - Adult Badge

Here’s another set of three Registration Badges, with a different colors for each age range.

The 5 and Unders got creatures from My Neighbor Totoro. The smallest one has been Connie-ified.

TEEN Wolf – see what I did there?

For the record, his name is Gossamer.

#CVG2007 - Exec on Duty

#CVG2007 - ConCom Badge

#CVG2007 - Board of Directors

What better to put on the Exec on Duty badge than the King of Monsters?

Zombies seemed fitting for ConCom. Most of us feel that way by the end of the weekend. John J. Smith was NOT actually a programming sub-head that year.

And Connie got a ride in Cat-Bus in another My Neighbor Totoro reference!

This year’s badge for Performers and Temp Badges featured the Star Wars Cantina Band.

Dealers Badges featured a Gremlin for sale.

Finance on Duty Badges featured the miserly Daffy and a sea of coins featuring Connie.

If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.