My 2016 Hugo Eligible Fan Art

I’ve been contributing artwork to conventions for a really long time. As in, about two decades. Most notably as a CONvergence co-founder, I created the CONvergence mascot characters and over the years have produced a vast majority of the art for the convention. But I like to contribute to other conventions too. It’s just something I do because I love fan-run conventions and I love lending my skills as an artist to make those events a little more special and unique. I never really gave it a lot of thought outside of generally being proud of my work, and enjoying the community’s reactions to it.

So it’s fair to say I was surprised when a good friend suggested to me that these works are eligible for Hugo nomination under the Fan Artist category.

This is a great (if you’ll pardon my pun) illustration of the dichotomy inherent to being a professional artist who is involved with fandom. There’s this whole side of my life as an artist that is absolutely professional—yes, I get paid, under contract, to draw comic books. But then there’s also this significant side of my life producing artwork that is, well, not professional at all. It’s all about being a fan and contributing to fandom. And it honestly, really never occurred to me before that my non-professional works could potentially be significant enough to be recognized.

I understand it’s common for those with Hugo eligible work in a given year to do a post listing it. So this will be me doing that. I’ve never done this before so I hope it’s not too off-base.

Click on any art to see it larger.

CONvergence

The theme for CONvergence 2015 was Dystopia. Here is the art I did for the con in 2015.

Programming Guide Covers

I created the covers for the CONvergence 2015 programming guide and pocket programming guide (called “The Grid”; its cover always has a grid theme. It’s possible I’m fond of visual puns.)

 

T-Shirt

The CONvergence 2015 T-shirt art references 1984, but with Connie Mark 2, the (slightly evil) little sister of Connie, CONvergence’s mascot.

Badges

I created the art for three of the four CONvergence 2015 membership badges. (Space intentionally left at the bottom for names to be printed.)

Guest of Honor Badges

Every year I create unique, custom badge art for every CONvergence Guest of Honor. Here are the Guest of Honor badges I made for CONvergence 2015. (Click here to read more about the process behind them.)

CONvergence 2016 Ad

The ad I created for CONvergence 2016, which will celebrate the great and interesting modes of transportation in science fiction and fantasy. This appeared in the back of the CONvergence 2015 programming guide, and on the CONvergence website. Bonus points if you can name all the vehicles!

CONvergence 2016 Logo and Web Graphic

Every year I create a new custom logo to reflect CONvergence’s theme, and 2015 was no different. The logo and website header graphic must be created a year in advance of the con, so that they can be published in printed materials and go live on the website immediately after the convention. Here is the logo that I created for CONvergence 2016, pictured as part of the website header graphic that I also made.

Rocky Mountain Con

Rocky Mountain Con is a fan-run convention in Denver, CO that serves as a fundraiser for Aurora Rise, a charity established to support victims of the 2012 Aurora Theater Shooting. For their 2015 convention, I created this commemorative artwork for them to sell at their merchandise table, with 100% of the sales going to the con’s charity.

Midwest Comic Book Association

MCBA is a fan-run organization that produces two nonprofit comic cons in Saint Paul, MN annually. In 2014, Nick Post, the beloved founder and driving force behind MCBA, passed away unexpectedly. It hit the community very hard. This is a piece of artwork I produced for MCBA’s Spring con to memorialize Nick and to raise money for MCBA’s partner charity.

Gallifrey One

2015 was kind of a light year for me doing artwork for Gallifrey One, a fan-run Doctor Who convention in LA. I did draw this train sporting the seal of Rassilon, which the con used for the Gallifrey One 2016 (Station 27) ad in their 2015 programming book.

JOFcon

Umm… platypus? Fez? Badge art? Yes.

Other Fan Art

This is some other fan art I made in 2015. I put it in the art shows and/or display it in the artist alleys of conventions I attend.