Toy Con Prep 2018- Shop Updates & Behind the scenes
This week I wanted to share a bit of a general update as to what we've been up to, and how we've been preparing for our first artist alley table at the end of September. I wanted this post to be more about our table set up, our packing plans and more about the con itself, but we are still waiting for more to come in the mail, so I'll be sharing more of the art we are preparing and info about our table set up will come a bit later.
First up, last week Paisley made great progress with our sticker machine and we were able to run some proofs with great success!
I was able to make some Eva Unit 01 and some Adventure Zone sticker sets. We had a couple issues with the stickyness of the cutting matte, so we can't sell these as full priced stickers, but I'm hoping to hand em out with other orders and as freebies when we travel.
Paisley has been super busy with freelance, but I'm hoping she can make a tutorial in the future about what she did to get these stickers made at home, cause there's not a lot of information out there for doing this kind of thing.
Here's a sneak peak at "CETADC 002" and a new product I've been playing with, some hand stitched sketchbook/journals with some of my art on the cover. A few years back I was given a bunch of drawing paper from a school that was closing their art department and I've wanted to put it to good use.
These books are 16 pages, 32 front and back of 60lb drawing paper. I won't be watercoloring on these, but as far as daily use journals and ink sketchbooks go it's perfect for that.
Watercolor has been calling my name again, so I stepped away from the computer for a few mornings to get some painting in. Below I've got a couple images, the first is a peak at a continuation of my "The Adventure Zone" tryptic series. This time jumping into their current arc, "The Adventure Zone Amnesty", which I highly recommend checking out.
I'll share all three of these final paintings in a post later on this month.
The second image here is an original painting based on a concept from my friend @leeKilleenart. He brought up the idea of a mech/robot being charged with taking care of chickens on a farm while humans were absent. Lee brought this up on a twitch stream months ago, but I've just now got around to doing something with it.
Right now we are a couple weeks away and have a lot done so far. In addition to running prints and ordering table supplies, I've been processing a bunch of cardboard for backers and shippers. We'd like to upgrade to nicer packaging later down the road, but for now, using recycled cardboard from local businesses helps us keep prices down and help the environment a bit!
These backers start out as big sheets or shipping boxes, I break everything down to 3'x3' sheets so I can handle them easier, and then sort them by cleanliness. If a box comes from a metal shop, many of the sheets will be too dirty for us to use but I do cut out smaller clean sections to keep too much from going to the trash stream.
Single ply cardboard gets turned into backers for conventions and shows, we slip these in with prints so they don't get bent or creased while the customer is walking around. Double ply is saved for shippers, can't trust the post office with single ply, the sorting machines can crinkle it too easily.
Oh, one last thing! Last week we were announced as a semi finalist for the Miami Short Film Festival in Florida!
I hope you've enjoyed this weeks update, I know it's a bit different than most. Coming up this month, I'll be talking about turning digital Agent Bird Frames into physical cells, a few new illustrations, and some process videos, so stay tuned!