CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2012 Guests of Honor

Happy CONvergence everybody!

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!

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

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

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

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

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: #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

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

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: Kovalic, Probert and Sheard (oh, my!)

It’s the time of year where in addition to doing my usual day-job art chores, I’m getting ready for CONvergence, the Sci-Fi convention I helped start back in 1999 and still help to run. In addition to my other responsibilities I do a lot of artwork for the convention, including custom badge art for each individual Guest of Honor. As we count down to CONvergence 2012  on July 5-8 this year, I thought I’d share some highlights from past Guest of Honor badges. I’ll share this year’s badges after the convention – the Guests of Honor they are for get to see them first!

2003 GoH - John Kovalic

At the time this was done, John Kovalic had been at the convention before and was a personal friend, making it much easier to figure out what to do for his badge art. John’s badge is done in the style of his Chez Geek cards, and features characters from his Dork Tower comic at CONvergence.

2003 GoH - Andrew Probert

Andrew Probert is a production designer whose credits include the Enterprise-D for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the Airwolf helicopter from the TV series of that name. Those two facts plus a recurring cliche from the Airwolf series provided the joke for this badge.

2003 GoH - Michael Sheard

Michael Sheard was also making a return appearance at CONvergence this year. The British character actor had appeared several times on Doctor Who over the years, including the story that introduced the Doctor’s robotic dog K-9. Michael famously had a love-hate relationship with that “tin dog,” given the remote-control prop’s never-ending malfunctioning on the set.

More badge art coming tomorrow!

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