CONvergence Badge Art: #2008 Guest Badges – 4 of 4

We’re counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8, with the last batch of badge art for the massive number of Guests of Honor of CONvergence 2008.

#CVG2008 – Wally Wingert

#CVG2008 – Marv Wolfman

#CVG2008 – Bridget Landry

Wally Wingert, with his obsession for the Adam West Batman again infecting his voiceover personas, this time his role as Jon Arbuckle on the new Garfield Show.

Marv Wolfman, who was only the writer when Dick Grayson got his first Nightwing costume in the pages of New Teen Titans.

And finally the badge for Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist Bridget Landry.

What’s that, you say? Bridget’s badge looks a little plain? She probably thought that, too when we first gave it to her, although she was too polite to say anything. But you see, we had a little surprise for her. When Bridget was first a Guest of Honor at CONvergence 2006, we learned that she was a cosplay maniac with a special love of original series Star Trek cosplay, appearing in several different spectacular costumes that weekend, all of her own creation. So what I did was I created this very simple badge for her featuring Connie, but then additional created several transparent overlays on lamination material, that featured paper-doll style costumes scaled and positioned to dress the Connie on her badge so she could cosplay WITH BRIDGET! These overlays were given to Bridget at the Guest of Honor Reception after she’d already gotten her badge and she was delighted!

The images below show the various cosplays provided on overlays to Bridget.

#CVG2008 – Bridget Red Shirt

#CVG2008 – Bridget Blue Shirt

#CVG2008 – Bridget Gold Shirt

The three divisional Starfleet Uniforms were pretty basic.

#CVG2008 – Bridget Rand

#CVG2008 – Bridget Medical

#CVG2008 – Bridget Mirror

These cosplay overlays were based on costumes I knew Bridget had: Yeoman Rand, Nurse Chapel, and Uhura’s Mirror Universe uniform.

And that’s finally the end of the #CVG2008 badges! On to #CVG2009!

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 Guest Badges – 3 of 4

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

#CVG2008 – Mercedes Lackey

#CVG2008 – Peter Mayhew

#CVG2008 – Andrew Probert

Another raptor image for Mercedes Lackey, making a matching set with the badge I did for her husband, Larry Dixon.

I’d thought of this image the first time Peter Mayhew was at CONvergence, but didn’t use it then because Peter didn’t know Connie yet. This time that wasn’t an issue.

The first time we’d had designer Andrew Probert as a guest I’d referenced his work for Star Trek: TNG and Airwolf. This time I referenced his role as designer of the Cylons for the original Battlestar Galactica!

#CVG2008 – David Weber

#CVG2008 – Len Wein

#CVG2008 – Greg Weisman

An Honor Harrington-esque spaceship for author David Weber.

I had fun dressing Connie in the original costume of Len Wein’s creation, Wolverine.

Spidey is about to get a surprise now that the sun has gone down on Greg Weisman’s badge, referencing his Spectacular Spider-man and Gargoyles animated TV series.

One more batch from #CVG2008 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 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.