Posts tagged: Badge Art

CONvergence 2015 Guest of Honor Badges

Since co-founding the first CONvergence in 1999, I’ve drawn unique, custom badge art for every CONvergence Guest of Honor, every year. It’s time consuming, but I believe—both as a convention runner and as a frequent guest at conventions myself—that it creates a powerful first impression towards CONvergence being a unique convention experience.

I usually try to reference something from a given guest’s body of work in a clever way, as well as try to incorporate our mascot, Connie, on badges for Guests who have been to CONvergence before and are already familiar with the character. Here are the custom Guest of Honor badges I created this year for our CONvergence 2015 Guests.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Wesley Chu

Wesley Chu

It’s always a challenge designing a badge for author guests if I don’t know of a recognizable visual “hook” associated with their work. But when I saw multiple references by Wesley in various bios and interviews to trying to perfect his “Blue Steel” look (he’s a big Zoolander fan), I knew what I had to do. Upon meeting him, Wesley said to me about his badge “How did you KNOW?”

Follow Wesley Chu’s blog at http://www.chuforthought.com/

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Nicole Dubuc

Nicole Dubuc

When I read that Nicole Dubuc had not only written a Flash comic but had voiced Iris-West Allen on Young Justice in addition to writing episodes of the series, I was tempted to do something with that theme for her badge art. I was worried that it was just my Young Justice bias showing, though, so I instead decided to work with the bigger milestones of her career. Kim Possible was one of Nicole’s first writing gigs and she developed the recent Transformers: Rescue Bots. She told me at the con that Chase happens to be her favorite Rescue Bot! Now if only we’d had more time to talk Young Justice

You can follow Nicole Dubuc on Twitter as @NicoleDubuc.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Chad Frey

Chad Frey

Chad Frey has been a set designer and art director on more films that I could even begin to work with, and I didn’t really know which were favorites or his level of contribution to each beyond the job title. I ended up focusing on his design work for Oz the Great and Powerful and had elements from his other films swept up by the cyclone, including references to Transformers, Cloverfield, The Green Hornet and even Mad Men.

Learn more about Chad Frey on his website, www.FreyArt.us.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Charlotte Fullerton

Charlotte Fullerton

While I try not to over-use Connie on our Guest Badges, I knew it was safe with Charlotte. She’d been to CONvergence before when her late husband (the great) Dwayne McDuffie was a Guest of Honor, so she knew who Connie was. It was kind of a no-brainer to dress Connie up as Ben 10, as that franchise has dominated much of Charlotte’s career for several years, including her role as story-editor on Ben 10: Omniverse.

You can follow Charlotte on Twitter at @TheCFullerton and on Facebook at The Charlotte Fullerton Page.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Lee Harris

Lee Harris

Lee Harris is an author and editor, currently Senior Editor for the new Novella imprint at Tor.com, which presents the usual issue I have with finding a visual hook for someone known for work in a non-visual field. I ended up going for a fun graphic treatment of a picture of Lee himself, which seems to have worked. Lee commented “You must be a great artist. You managed to make me look cool.”

I have to note that Lee was fantastically funny our annual, very silly SMACKDOWN! panel. It was great getting to spend some time chatting with Lee over the con weekend!

Learn more about Lee Harris at his blog, www.LeeHarris.com, and follow him on Twitter as @LeeAHarris.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Jennifer Ouellette

Jennifer Ouellette

Sadly Jennifer is the one Guest of Honor I never managed to meet face-to-face over the convention weekend. All you really need to know about Jennifer’s badge art is that one of her books is titled “The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.” I feel like I nailed 3 out of 4 elements of that title. All four if you consider bits of a zombie being missing as weight loss.

Jennifer writes the blog, Cocktail Party Physics for Scientific American.

You can learn more about Jennifer Ouellette on her website, www.jenniferouellette-writes.com, or follow her on Twitter at @JenLucPiquant.

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Gordon Smuder

Gordon Smuder

I’ve been friends with Gordon for many years and have been lucky enough to collaborate with him on a few projects. I flat out asked him if he had a preference for what he wanted on his Guest of Honor badge. I swear I thought he said “No puppets,” which baffled me because Gordon is best known for his puppet building and for puppet-based projects like Transylvania Television and his upcoming Vermin (Featuring MST3K Alumni Trace Beaulieu). So I went with something I knew was one of Gordon’s great fandoms: The Herculoids. Gordon said he LOVED the badge, but that he’d told me “No MUPPETS.” Why the heck would I ever have considered putting Jim Henson Studios characters on Gordon’s badge? Ah, well…

You can see many more of Gordon’s puppet creations at www.thepuppetforge.com.
Learn more about the Vermin web show and its Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/792672696/relaunch-vermin-web-show

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Toni Weisskopf

Toni Weisskopf

Another stumper: Toni Weisskopf, publisher of Baen Books. I didn’t want go to the “portrait” option for a third time, so instead I did a fun graphic treatment of the Baen logo. I lucked out again as Toni loved it. I don’t think I ever saw her face-to-face again after the Guest Reception on the night before the convention properly began, so I hope she had a great con weekend!

http://www.baen.com/

CVG 2015 GoH Badge prev - Bryan Thao Worra

Bryan Thao Worra

And finally, Bryan Thao Worra was another 2015 guest I’ve been lucky enough to have been friends with for a few years. When I asked him about badge art preferences he mentioned a couple of options, including adding something to his collection of Naga artwork. So for a multi-year attendee CONvergence panelist, one more Connie. This one being Connie as a Naga, with each of the Medusa-like crown of snakes sporting their own Connie-style antenna.

You can learn more about Bryan Thao Worra at his blog, thaoworra.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter as @thaoworra.

So that wraps up all of the CONvergence 2015 badge art. You can check out my 2014 blog posts featuring the CONvergence 2014 Guest of Honor Badges and the CONvergence 2014 membership badge art as well! And if you’re interested in checking out more badge art from previous years, I’ve got most of it posted on my blog under the “Badge Art” tag – click here to check it out!

CONvergence 2014 Guest of Honor Badges

Since co-founding the first CONvergence in 1999, I’ve drawn unique, custom badge art for every CONvergence Guest of Honor, every year. It’s time consuming, but I believe—both as a convention runner and as a frequent guest at conventions myself—that it creates a powerful first impression towards CONvergence being a unique convention experience.

I usually try to reference something from a given guest’s body of work in a clever way, as well as try to incorporate our mascot, Connie, on badges for Guests who have been to CONvergence before and are already familiar with the character. Here are the custom Guest of Honor badges I created this year for our CONvergence 2014 Guests.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Amy Berg

Amy Berg

One of Amy’s projects is the digital series, Caper, for Geek and Sundry. It seemed appropriate to highlight one of the superheroes from that show, so I drew the armored alter ego of The Machine.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Emma Bull

Emma Bull

Emma Bull is probably best known in the Twin Cities for her Minneapolis-based urban fantasy novel, War for the Oaks, so I wanted to visually reference that setting, including the novel’s protagonist, Eddi McCandry, and the shape-shifting phouka.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - C Robert Cargill

C Robert Cargill

Cargill is a long-time friend of CONvergence as well as a personal friend of mine. Knowing his tastes, it was a no-brainer to suit him up as Ace Hunter from Megaforce, with Connie along for the ride on his jet-powered, flying motorcycle.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Sarah Clemens

Sarah Clemens

Much of Sarah’s work features the characters of Magnus the cat and Loki the Norwegian Speartail Dragon, so doing something with them seemed the obvious choice. I understood Magnus & Loki are known to be pair of troublemakers, and somehow a “Usual Suspects” motif emerged…

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Matthew Ebel

Matthew Ebel

Musician Matt Ebel includes many references to robots, including GLaDOS from Portal. So I placed GLaDOS in front of a keyboard and added Matthew’s trademark beard. This was the design from this year that I most questioned how it would go over, but Matthew was delighted with it. Whew!

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch

This was Scott’s first time as a CONvergence Guest of Honor but he’s been attending the convention for many years, so I had no problem casting Connie as the Gray King standing in front of Red Seas Under Red Skies from Scott’s Gentleman Bastard series of novels.

CONvergence 2014 welcomed several Guests of Honor with connections to Disney’s Gargoyles as part of our celebration of the Gargoyles 20th Anniversary. In light of this, I did a mash-up of a Gargoyles character with another thing a given Guest of Honor was known for. 
CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Greg Guler

Greg Guler

Greg was Lead Character Designer for Gargoyles and currently serves in the same capacity on Phineas and Ferb, so his badge featured a mash-up of Brooklyn and Phineas and Ferb’s Agent P.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Frank Paur

Frank Paur

Frank was the Supervising Producer on Gargoyles and in recent years has served as art director and director of many Marvel animation projects, including Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, so I drew Dr. Bruce Banner transforming into Gargoyles’ Broadway, in an homage to the cover of The Incredible Hulk #1.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Marina Sirtis

Marina Sirtis

Marina Sirtis was the voice of the villainous Demona on Gargoyles, which stood in stark contrast with her role as Counsellor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. So I couldn’t resist putting Demona in Troi’s uniform… With a phaser rifle thrown in for good measure.

CVG 2014 GoH Badge prev - Greg Weisman

Greg Weisman

I’ve been lucky enough call Greg a colleague and a friend for several years. The majority of our work together was on the Young Justice comic book for DC Comics, so dressing Goliath as Young Justice’s Nightwing seemed oddly appropriate. Whelmed, even.

So that wraps up all of the CONvergence 2014 badge art. If you didn’t see it yet, be sure to check out the CONvergence 2014 membership badge art as well! And if you’re interested in checking out more badge art from previous years, I’ve got most of it posted on my blog under the “Badge Art” tag – click here to check it out!

CONvergence 2014 Badge Art

Each year, CONvergence commissions volunteer art for its Membership Badges that feature our CONvergence mascot, Connie, and references that year’s convention theme. We have different badge art for each of the four different age categories we produce badges for, and inevitably I hear people wishing they’d gotten the artwork on a different age group’s badge.

When I produce the badge art (which almost always, but not always the case), I try to keep the colors bright with a different color scheme for each design so that the small membership badges are as easily identifiable as possible for our volunteer badgers and staff under the various lighting conditions around the convention.

Without further adieu, here were the CONvergence 2014: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Membership Badge Designs!

Adult Badge: Connie and her slightly evil sister Connie Mark 2 as Detective Elisa Masa and Demona from Gargoyles, flanking Goliath.

CVG 2014 Adult Badge RGB
Ages 13-17 Badge: Connie and Mark 2 again as Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural, with their creator Professor Max as Bobby.

CVG 2014 Ages 13-17 Badge
Ages 6-12 Badge: Connie as Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service.

CVG 2014 Ages 6-12 Badge
5 & Under Badge: Connie riding Falcor from The Neverending Story.

CVG 2014 5 & Under Badge

CONvergence also produces custom badge art for each of its Guests of Honor. It was no different for our 2014 Guests! Check out my CONvergence 2014 Guest of Honor badge art post!

If you’re interested in checking out more badge art from previous years, I’ve got most of it posted on my blog under the “Badge Art” tag – click here to check it out!

CONvergence 2013 – Registration Badge & Souvenir Book Cover Art

CVG 2013 Souvenir Book Cover prev

This was the cover art for the CONvergence 2013 Souvenir Program Guide. Years ago I had drawn the CONvergence mascot Connie as all 10 of the Doctors from Doctor Who. Now as Matt Smith is preparing to leave the show, I still hadn’t had the occasion to add the 11th Doctor to that series. Clearly, this was the time! I arranged Connie as the Eleven Doctors into a clock face around the Seal of Rassilon, with Connie’s creator Professor Max in the #12 position. Will Professor Max be the 12th Doctor? Time will tell…

We had a new system for badges this year, with pre-printed plastic badges in a horizontal format, rather than laminating paper badges designed in a vertical format. The best outcome of this is that the badges now are friendly to the Badge Ribbon tradition popular at Gallifrey One and other conventions! Of course, this badge shape creates some interesting challenges for badge art. Here’s what I came up with for CONvergence 2013!

CVG 2013 Badge 5 & Under b

Connie as the Conductor from Thomas the Tank Engine

CVG 2013 Badge 6-12 b

Connie as Harry Potter

CVG 2013 Badge 13-17 d

Connie Mark 2 as Number Two from The Prisoner

CVG 2013 Badge Adult c

Professor Max as Rose Tyler, Connie as… apparently SEVERAL of the Doctors, and Connie Mark 2 as a Cyberman

CONvergence 2013 – Guest of Honour Badge Art

I’m back home from CONvergence 2013, and what a weekend it was. (OK, I was back home a week ago, but since then I’ve been busy catching up on projects and cobbling together photos for this post!)

Without further delay, as promised, here are the CONvergence 2013 Guest of Honour Badges!

Every year I do original badge art for each of the convention’s Guests of Honor. It’s a rather labor-intensive tradition, but it makes a great early impression with guests that their time at CONvergence is going to be something unique and special, and honestly it’s the best icebreaker in the world for me to meet these great people. They almost always flip when they see their badges and are excited to meet the crazy artist who made them!

CVG 2013 GoH Badge - Lou Anders prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - Charlie Jane Anders prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - Caitlin Blackwood prev


Here’s Lou Anders shown in the outfit he wore when accepting his Hugo Award. Lou seemed like a great guy and I was sorry I didn’t get more time to chat with him at the con.

I went for her iconic hair and glasses for Charlie Jane Anders‘ badge. At the con her blonde locks had been dyed a spectacular pink. I knew going in there was a good chance I wasn’t going to match her at-con look. Ah, well…

For Caitlin Blackwood‘s badge I went for her iconic moment as Amelia Pond from Doctor Who. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Caitlin, but by all accounts she and her mom had a good time!

CVG 2013 GoH Badge - Bill Corbett prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - Paul Cornell prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - James Moran prev


I’d met Bill Corbett before, even getting to work with him on the Joseph Scrimshaw-produced Super Powered Revenge Christmas #1. While Bill’s ongoing gig these days is Rifftrax, for the sake of a familiar visual I put the silhouette of Crow T. Robot (who Bill voiced after Trace Beaulieu) from MST3K.

Paul Cornell has been good enough to visit CONvergence a number of times before, and rather than reference one of his writing projects again, I thought instead I’d highlight his now-traditional Cricket demo, with CONvergence mascot Connie and her sister robot Connie Mark 2 taking up the game.

I usually avoid using Connie on the badge of first-time Guests of Honor, but referencing the poster for screenwriter James Moran‘s film Severance was too good to pass up.

CVG 2013 GoH Badge - Kevin Murphy prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - John Picacio prevCVG 2013 GoH Badge - Melinda Snodgrass prev


I hadn’t met Kevin Murphy before, and sadly still really haven’t. We were both in the same room a couple of times, but that’s as good as it got. His badge is a companion piece to Bill Corbettt’s featuring the silhouette of MST3K‘s Tom Servo.

I got to interview John Picacio for his One-on-One panel. His badge is a reference to his cover art for the novel No Going Back.

And finally, when I realized that Melinda Snodgrass‘ breakthrough Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Measure of a Man” had introduced the Enterprise crew poker games and that she was one of the major contributors behind George R. R. Martin’s Wildcards series, the mash-up seemed rather obvious!

I’ll have the rest of my CONvergence report up in a bit!