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.

	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/
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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
	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/
	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!

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.

	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.
	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.
	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.
	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…
	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!
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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!

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.

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

Ages 6-12 Badge: Connie as Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service.

5 & Under Badge: Connie riding Falcor from The Neverending Story.

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!

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!

Connie as the Conductor from Thomas the Tank Engine

Connie as Harry Potter

Connie Mark 2 as Number Two from The Prisoner

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

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!

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!

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.

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!

Here’s THIS YEAR’S Guest of Honor batches, which were handed out to the #CVG2012 Guests of Honor at the hotel last night. I say last night, but I’m pre-scheduling this post on Wednesday, so they don’t have them yet and I’m still hoping they’ll like them! This is the grand finale to several days worth of posts sharing the art I’ve done for badges for the past several years of CONvergence.

#CVG2012 – Bonnie Burton

#CVG2012 – Jennifer Clarke Wilkes

#CVG2012 – Judith Walcutt

Jennifer Clarke Wilkes is an editor, notably of the book The Last Supper. So you can see what I did with a parody of that book’s cover. I hope she finds this joke funny.

Among her other credits, Judith Walcutt was Executive Producer of the The War of the Worlds 50th Anniversary Production.

#CVG2012 – Lyda Morehouse

#CVG2012 – Ruth Thompson

#CVG2012 – Sharyn November

Ruth Thompson’s badge is a Connie-fication of Ruth’s print Eye of the Storm.

Sharyn November is the author of the Firebirds series, including the award winning Firebirds Rising.

#CVG2012 – Sophie Aldred

#CVG2012 – Tamora Pierce

And finally Tamora Pierce’s badge is a reference to her Songs of the Lioness series.

So these guests are walking around the Double Tree hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota wearing these badges. Hopefully they like them.

Once again, watch for all the CONvergence-related tweets at #CVG2012. I hope to see many of you there! Look me up at one of my signings or panels!

I promise to return with some Young Justice blog posts soon!

Here’s the last batch of art I’ve done for badges for the Guests of Honor of CONvergence 2011.

#CVG2011 – Edward Douglas

#CVG2011 – Brain Van Camp

#CVG2011 – Jason Carter

Actor Brian Van Camp was in the film and sported a zombie look not entirely dissimilar from this badge art.

The film also features actor Jason Carter, best known to many sci-fi fans from his role as Ranger Marcus Cole on Babylon 5.

#CVG2011 – Lynne Thomas

#CVG2011 – Seanan McGuire

#CVG2011 – Catherynne Valente

Author Seanan McGuire is a Munsters fan and made the mistake of mentioning publicly that she identified with Marilyn Munster. Clearly she paid for her mistake.

I was at a bit of a loss for what to do for author and poet Catherynne Valente, and ended up referencing the fairytale element of her work very literally.

#CVG2011 – Brian Keene

#CVG2011 – Anthony Tollin

#CVG2011 – Greg Weisman

The first badge I had an idea for this year was Anthony Tollin’s. Anthony is a historian of The Shadow and other pulp heroes, and is publishing deluxe reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage pulp novels. I first knew of Tony for his work as a colorist, specifically his work as colorist of Keith Giffen’s Ambush Bug series for DC Comics. Mash up! There you go.

And finally we had another returning Guest of Honor with Greg Weisman, who I was working with on the comic book version of Young Justice, based on the animated TV series for which is is head-writer and producer. Red Tornado is featured in Young Justice, a character Greg has a history with, so Connie got the Red Tornado treatment.

That’s it! We’re all caught up! I’ll be scheduling a post for tomorrow with the 2012 Guest of Honor badges, but otherwise I’m off to CONvergence! Watch for all the CONvergence-related tweets at #CVG2012. I hope to see many of you there! Look me up at one of my signings or panels!

This is the final day of the countdown 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 2011 theme was Tomrrow Through the Past, not just a celebration of steampunk, but of all things retro-futuristic and of yesterday’s visions of tomorrow!

#CVG2011 – 5 & Under

#CVG2011 – 6-12 Badge

#CVG2011 – 13-17 Badge

Did you have a better time at CONvergence 2011 than some other years? Did it feel like a better experience? A better convention as a whole? It probably did, and it was because of how cohesive my badge design work was that year. Search your feelings. You know it to be true. Oh, that’s AstroBoy, Iron Giant, and the Rocketeer from left to right.

#CVG2011 – Adult Badge

And that’s a steampunk cutaway Connie schematic on the Adult badge.

#CVG2011 – Service Animal Badge

#CVG2011 – Party Badge

That’s K-9 on the Service Animal Badge and the Party Badge which was new that year. We asked Party Hosts to badge parties in 2011, and as a trade off Party Hosts were allowed a certain number of Party Staff who could come in to help using these badges.

#CVG2011 – ConCom Badge

I used the Connie-in-the-Metropolis-Chair image which had proved to be quite popular that year on the Convention Committee Badge.

#CVG2011 – Temp Thurs

#CVG2011 – Temp Friday

#CVG2011 – Temp Sat

If you couldn’t fathom based on Thursday through Saturday what the Sunday Temp Badge might have looked like…

#CVG2011 – Temp Sunday

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

#CVG2010 – Chuck McCann

#CVG2010 – Jeremy Bulloch

#CVG2010 – LA Banks

“Boba Fett? Boba Fett, WHERE?” Yes, I went there on Jeremy Bulloch’s badge.

An elegant design based on a character from L.A. Banks‘ writing. She is missed.

#CVG2010 – Paul Cornell

#CVG2010 – Wally Wingert

#CVG2010 – Bridget Landry

Wally Wingert’s obsession with the Adam West Batman appeared again, this time mashed up with Wally’s new gig as the announcer for Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

Yep, it’s another plain Connie badge for cosplay queen of the rocket scientists Bridget Landry. I wanted to produce a new badge in the style of the 2010 Guest of Honor badges, but I made sure the scale and position of the Connie figure was the same as her previous badge, so the costume overlays I was providing her with would work equally well with the new badge. I didn’t try to keep this plan a surprise this time, and contacted her in advance of the convention to ask if there were any planned cosplays I could match.

#CVG2010 – Bridget Draco

#CVG2010 – Bridget Kira

#CVG2010 – Bridget Maleficent

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

The CONvergence 2010 theme was Bring on the Bad Guys, a celebration of villains that saw Connie’s slightly evil sister Connie Mark 2 take over the convention. This was a goldmine for artwork ideas, and I tried to give a lot of the graphics a fascist, propaganda poster edge, while still having a fun, CONvergence flavor.

#CVG2010 – 5 & Under

#CVG2010 – Ages 6-12

#CVG2010 – Ages 13-17

The evil alien kids from Village of the Damned made for a creepy badge for the 6-12 crowd.

And the teens got Red Mist from the newly released Kick Ass.

#CVG2010 – Adult Badge

#CVG2010 – Exec Badge

#CVG2010 – Service Animal

And the Service Animal Badge that year saw the evil Mirror Universe version of Connie’s dog Sparky.

In 2010 we eliminated having separate badges for members of the Board of Directors, and we just got our own ConCom Badges. It was a good call. All hail Mark 2!

Mark 2 was overthrown by Closing Ceremony, of course, and all was right with the con once again. But Mark 2 plots her return to power from her new role in ConSuite. Who thought letter her near the food was a good idea?

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