London MCM Expo
London MCM was my first big convention with my own table, and I had a blast! I had absolutely no idea how many fans of Sister Claire would show up and meet me. I had so much fun meeting them in person, as well as making new friends. Here is a little rundown of how it went! Aspiring con-going artists, I hope this helps you with your future displays. =)
I arrived on Friday the 29th at 8am to set up, with the help of my assistant Katie. The table was so small compared to all the things I needed to display! I decided that next time I need to find a better solution for displaying all my posters than just laying them all on the table. (They had to overlap due to lack of space.) You can see that I also brought along some sweeties to lure people over to my table. (My ploy worked!)
Here I am cutting out some last minute signage. I had forgotten to make a title display at the top! D'oh!
Next, I put up my biggest posters, which I knew would be the main attractions to the stand. Predictably, the "Evolution of Lady Gaga" was the biggest draw. I definitely need to print a LOT more of those for next time!
Once the display was finished, I took a seat and put on my most terrifying inviting smile.
By total coincidence, I ended up seated directly across from the booth for "Simon's Cat," which had a huge queue most days, and that queue was directly facing my display! Awesome! XD Here is my favorite picture I took of their setup, which these two AMAZING "Cats" cosplayers browsed the merch:
Here is my glamorous assistant, Katie Woodger, displaying some cute Mario mushroom earrings she bought from another artist in the Comic Village!
With all of my large prints, I included a free sketch! (Sketches were also purchasable on their own.) Here are two cute girls holding the sketch they requested from me:
Here is a picture that Time-Pirate took of Katie and I at work. I spent most of the day with my head down, drawing requests! At some point, there was a waiting list of about 1 hour for a sketch. O_O
I drew MANY sketches for people over the 3 days. I emptied out two brand new sketchbooks! Here are the ones I remembered to take photos of. Gaga, Sister Claire, and portrait sketches were the most popular, but a lot of people also requested Nightingale and Avatar related art. It was a lot of fun!
I also met some wonderful fans of Sister Claire/Nightingale! I really appreciated you coming by the table and talking to me! I get a lot of comments online, but the fact that people actually READ and LIKE my comics never completely registers until I hear it coming from people in real life! I am always so amazed. In the future, if anyone reading this meets me at a con, don't be shy about saying hello, I would love to talk to you. <3 One such fan who approached me was Juliet, who blew me away by buying a good chunk of merch and just generally being a really really sweet person! (Sorry for the blurryness, I think it was taken with her phone!)
I also met up with Josceline Fenton, creator of "Hemlock!" I had been admiring her art style on DA for quite some time before realizing she would be attending the same con! Of course I had to go ahead and buy a book, and one for my friend Ingrid as well. "Hemlock" is about a Scandinavian witch, and is very very pretty. Josceline even threw in some free postcards for me when i traded the second copy of the book for my Witch print. What an awesome lady she is! (P.S. She is @ MildTarantula on Twitter.)
I even had some people remember the secret password I posted on Twitter ("Happy Birthday") who came to claim their free sketch! Awesome. And a couple people were even kind enough to bring me gifts:
Best of all, I made some friends who live in Plymouth!! That means I won't have to be all lonely and sad without comic fan friends anymore! YESSSS.
Lastly, here is a cute video I made of my friend Robbie's kitten, Nala. I met her when I stayed with him during this short but wonderful trip to London. Meow!
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