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.