Day 2, Mr. Saviuk was one of the first artists to arrive. Whilst waiting around, he called me out by name to say that he had completed my piece. What an absolute professional he is, I highly recommend you get something from him if you have the chance, but don't be silly like me and request it at the con, do what Wrothy did and get the full colour treatment. Take a look at his Etrigan and you'll agree with me.
Shortly thereafter, I was able to have my wish fulfilled and get my Huntress from Mark!
This was Mark's first Huntress, hopefully when those sharks at Marvel forget to renew his contract, the guys at DC will stop making above-average movies and snap this guy up. Could you imagine a Birds of Prey book done by this guy? If Mark and Lisa were total d-bags, I would still love this piece but as it turns out, they are some of the most down-to-earth and sociable people, and it's clear that they are quality over quantity sort of folk. Hopefully we can get him over to our side of Australia sooner rather than later. And yes, I'm still gonna make you wait until you see the pic up close.
That was pretty much everything I had set out to do on my trip, on a bit of a high, I decided to do the Perez line and see if I could get a contribution in my Bat-book from him as well. He had the time, and commented that he had not sketched a Joker for a while and that he was just about due for one. Who am I to argue?
After taking a photo of our Perez-sandwhich, Wrothy and I went to check out the artist sketch-off. I'm not sure if this is a common event, but basically it's sketching for 30min on a theme and character as voted on by the audience, before picking a winner by way of applause and raffling off the art. Lots of fun, I thought it was a fantastic way for everyone to get a look at how 3 very different artists work their magic
The subject for the event was Vampirella...
And the winner was....
Alex Saviuk! Apologies for the lack of detail on the pieces.
So all in all, it was well worth taking the time off work and enjoying a convention on the other side of the country. I must thank my gracious host Stephen - he may have an affinity to Etrigan, however he's anything but a demon. I'd like to think that even if I didn't achieve obtaining my grail, I would have found the trip worthwhile just to spend the weekend with him and his loving family.
It was also great making new friends there like MrSinister, I'm not sure if it says something about me, but O find that "convention friends" are almost always the best kind of friends. They'll bust your balls, argue with you about pop culture and embarrass you in front of the artists, yet they'll help you out in lines and do everything they can to make sure you get everything you can. It's taken me this weekend to have my faith restored in humanity, with guys like Doc and Rocket checking in from a different timezone back home to make sure that everything is ok, and seeing how things were looking with Mark. It's rare to have even one friend who would be that selfless, I am truly blessed to say that I have a few so thank you very much from the bottom of my cynical heart.
Also a shout out to Royd, I didn't get a picture with him as he was actually a very busy man over the weekend. I don't want to ruin the illusion too much, but as someone who works behind the scenes with the artist, this guy actually has a TON of stuff that needs to be done to ensure everything runs as planned.
So all's well that ends well, right? Well...
) were lining up at. I checked it out and they weren't exhibitors or VIPs, so we all just followed the crowd and went in. This was about 35min before the official start time, and I think it was because they wanted to see if they could thin out the crowd a little and allow people to line up inside the convention hall specifically to buy photo/auto tickets. In any case, I made my request with Mark and his awesome wife Lisa and did everything I could to leave a good impression.
