City of Heroes sketchbooks! Signed! Bid! Now!
Last year we (as in, the Creative Concepts team within NCsoft Europe headed by me) put together a limited edition City of Heroes Sketchbook, and very happy I was about it too, as you can tell from this picture taken with the first one.
Anyway, while I know many of you who attended cons we were at (particularly Bristol ’08) probably already have a sketchbook, not many of you will have it signed by the artists whose work is inside the covers!
Well, now’s your chance to own one of ten sketchbooks that have been defaced by artists like Dave Gibbons, Doug Braithwaite, Mark Buckingham, Andie Tong, Phil Winslade, Bryan Talbot and many more! Oh also there are pictures.
All you have to do is bid on this charity auction, with all proceeds as ever going to EveryChild!
Seriously folks, this thing is lovely, with loads of sketches inside depicting the well-known signature characters from City of Heroes, including Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Ms Liberty, Sister Psyche, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow and more. If you don’t believe me, click the image on the right to see some thumbnails of the imagery inside.
Considering the sketchbook was only… Continue reading
Bristol Comic Expo 2009… the one without a job
This weekend was another Bristol Comic Expo – my fourth, not my fifth, as I got confused about before.
I’ve gone every year since 2005, except 2006 (when it clashed with a trip to LA for E3), but every year I attended to officially represent NCsoft. What started in 2005 as a couple of us stuck in a corner trying to flog City of Heroes (without actually selling it) culminated last year in a big ol’ stand with practically an artistic production-line to handle the pencilling, inking, scanning, colouring and printing of player sketches. Without a doubt, in terms of our professional ambitions, Bristol 2008 was our high point. As a fun weekend away for me personally though, this year is the hands-down winner.
Despite that, we definitely fulfilled our primary purpose: to help out Andrew Wildman once more with Draw the World Together. Mat and I couldn’t be happier to help, but as always, there were a lot of people who made things happen.
First and foremost was Mike Allwood, Expo organiser, who gave us the space and time we needed to sketch in. It was no easy feat, as with this year’s Expo being squeezed into the Ramada Hotel (with overspill at the nearby Mercure) it was hard to swing a cat, let alone get half-a-dozen artists to sketch in one room. Mike also ensured that our most generous supporters could get into the Expo, even after tickets were officially sold out. As always whenever I saw Mike over the weekend he was a picture of relaxed calm amongst the chaos, and went above and beyond to help things run smoothly.
DTWT doesn’t really work without Andrew Wildman at the centre of things though – even though he’d say he’s not the most important part! As always Andrew pulled strings, stroked egos and generally hustled to get a great group of artists to sit and sketch. He’s a diamond geezer, as anyone will attest to, and of course he sketched more than a few things on the day too.
Mat and I? We just turned up, really. So let’s kick back with the traditional, chronological, rambling retelling…. Continue reading
Bristol Comic Expo ’09: see ya there?
As I mentioned in passing before, my partner in crime Mat and I will be returning to Bristol Comic Expo this coming weekend. It’ll be my fifth expo, but it’s the first time I’ll be there under my own aegis – in other words, no tasty expenses-paid meals for me.
However, one thing will be the same: Mat and I will be trying to help raise some charity cash for Draw The World Together, although we’ll be doing the easy bit (Taking your donations and keeping people fed and watered) while our amazing volunteer comic artists do the hard stuff, ie drawing your characters.
On top of the sketching – we also have some fantastic original art that we’ll probably be auctioning, in some ad hoc fashion, over the weekend. If we don’t get rid of something at the show, we’ll auction it online afterwards.
Unfortunately as we left the decision to attend so late this year – blame me for that, with imminent visa interviews putting everything on hold – by the time we said we were going, tickets were pretty much sold out. (The Expo’s moved – for one year only, I understand, to the much smaller hotel nearby, so capacity is limited.) I apologise to all of you who are anxious to get sketches – but fingers crossed, Andrew Wildman will return to Bristol (and other shows) to do the same thing.
As well as trying to raise some cash for DTWT I’m also going to the Expo, well, to see the Expo! I was there in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and never got to sit on any panels, or spend much time wandering around the hall. So this time, at last, I’ll get the chance.
Last but not least… this will be my last show in the UK for a while. I’m hoping to return later this year (Stay tuned for what and when….) but for a while, at least, this will be my last chance to meet up with You People. You know who you are…. and you know the drill! It should be a lot of fun.
Here’s how this weekend’s going to break down, then…
Win a Neil Edwards-painted PC!
First it was Andrew Wildman’s pen caressing the curves (er… okay, flat panels) of a custom-built City of Heroes styled PC.
Now it’s Neil Edwards’ turn, who picked up his paint brushes to create a one of a kind PC case featuring Statesman and Ghost Widow.
Where can you win it? In The Sun, of course – that super soaraway superpowered paper of record.
Click here to go enter the competition and win!!
Win an Andrew Wildman PC!
Well, sort of.
In yesterday’s Daily Mirror – which as I understand is a ‘national newspaper’ here in the UK, with a ‘very high’ circulation – there was a competition to be found on page two, wherein readers could win a ‘one of a kind’ PC with a lovely drawing by Andrew Wildman on the side of none other than Back Alley Brawler. Which looks like this:
Yes, it’s an NCsoft-City of Heroes-Draw the World Together competition in a national paper. How’d you like them apples.
(Interesting timing, too, no? With a certain big-name, big-muscled superhero film releasing this weekend? Choice of Paragon City’s resident big-muscled brawler wasn’t a coincidence either.)
But how can you win this PC I hear you ask? Go foraging in bins for yesterday’s copy of the paper? Invent a time machine and go back a day just to buy the issue, and while you’re there, bet on whatever match happened last night in Euro 2008? You could do those things. Continue reading
A picture of innocence
If anything qualifies as a ‘Weird self-portrait’ it’s this. Except, erm, I didn’t do it myself. Oh well:
Right then, Friday is it?
As I mentioned yesterday, starting my week on a Thursday after a West Coast US-South Coast UK transition threw me for a bit of a loop, so much so that I was convinced it was Monday for a while. Today I didn’t think it was Tuesday, but naturally it didn’t feel much like a Friday either.
Again, slowly getting back up to speed today. One thing that’s been making that whole process feel a bit ‘different’ is this:
Yes, it’s an iMac, which I am now (as of yesterday) using completely as my primary work machine, as opposed to the screen I turned to when I needed to do a nice presentation, or perhaps check my receding hairline (it’s very shiny, you see, like a mirror). This has meant that I’ve had to re-learn how to do my email (I’m using the built-in Mail app, not Outlook) and even how to use Word .docs too. So that’s been a bit slow. Thank God the web works the same, wherever.
What did I get up to today, though? Mostly email catch-up, and I also spent quite a bit of time writing this and this.
Yes, we’ve finally announced what we’re… Continue reading