Supanova Perth 2011

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before I get to the art, I have to start by thanking Wrothy publically for his hospitality. Behind every great man is a great woman, and I can say in his case there were three great women who took great care of me and I'm very grateful, fingers crossed that HeroesCon won't clash with SuPERTHnova 2012.
Steve's summed up the experience pretty well but I have to add that the flight in was horrific for me! On top of being delayed, it seemed that I fly straight through the belly of the storm and got tossed around quite a bit. I was pretty annoyed by the whole being delayed then missing out on getting our wristbands, after all we had went through. Luckily things would play out quite favourably in the end.
The first day was basically putting in orders with the artists, I was able to pick up a pre-order from Chamba which complements a piece he did for me last year -

and the first piece -

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Although I was early in line for Finch, I decided to splurge and request one of his overnight pieces. Costly, but when is the next time I get this opportunity, right? So that was pretty much it for the first day, the second day would hopefully yield more pieces...
So on the Sunday morning, we rocked up about 30min from doors opening and I'm amazed at how BUSY the place is! In Melbourne, our cons are usually quite steady on the second day but significantly smaller but that wasn't the case in Perth. Chamba even commented that he felt more activity on day two. Wrothy and I were positioned 2 and 3 for Finch. Funnily enough, the night before was the VIP party and apparently of the three international artists (Finch, Billy Tan and Dave Johnson), Rev. Johnson was the only one to go and yet he was the first to show up! Anyway, Finch and Tan are still quite timely and Finch spots me in the line and says something to the effect of "I did a Batman for you, right?". He pulls out some pieces and I spot amongst my piece a Cyblade which looked pretty hot. Here's my overnight Finch piece, behold -

Pretty awesome, right? He did some great work over the weekend, of course I like it better than Steve's, but I don't know if it's 5 times better (wink ). I decided to also ask if he'd add to my Bat-themed book and requested a Two-Face. I felt we had a great chat as well during the course of the sketch, topics covered include appreciation for The Wiggles (we even did a bit of "hot potato hot potato!"), our love for Batman and especially his rogues gallery, how young I looked for a dentist (and no, I did not bring up the fact that SOME people - certain impatient people - called me Doogie Howser). Also shot the breeze with Billy Tan as well about some dental-related issues, we spoke a little bit at NYCC 2010 before he migrated to Sydney. Here's the Two-Face which I think is pretty cool -

[BoloMusashi]

Wow super impressive. I really wish I did splurge and go for a Finch, Tan and/or Johnson piece.

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Originally Posted by BoloMusashi

Wow super impressive. I really wish I did splurge and go for a Finch, Tan and/or Johnson piece.

thanks man, and as Wrothy noted, it was YOU that scored that Magneto piece! Congrats!
Sorry for the delay, my bro was using the computer.
Anyways...
I go to Dave Johnson and he's putting the finishing touches to my request from Saturday, who else but Batman -

Safe choice and I'm very happy with it, too bad he didn't attach any vulgur speech bubbles to mine! I also requested a piece as a gift for a friend, so if he's lurking out there, I hope you like it -

Sorry for the poor quality picture, the Reverend noted that next time he'll charge extra for having to draw the armour.
I didn't get a piece by Billy this time around since he's a bit more accessible now and I had gotten something at NYCC but he's definately gonna be adding to my Bat-book. Any suggestions? As noted, we had a great chat and hopefully he'll make a trip to Melbourne one of these days.
Now there's one final piece...

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The good Doc A arranged a piece with Ben Templesmith to go with the Joker I obtained earlier in the year. It was pretty awesome and I did actually plan to get a companion Batman in future. Here's the Joker for those that forgot -

and the Batman companion piece -

I don't think Ben's style is a perfect fit for mainstream superheroes but with a character like Batman, almost anything style can work and I think this con really showed that. There's the solid and simple linework of Johnson, the modern superheroic proportions of Finch and the gritty and looser Templesmith style. Thanks Doc, you know that like a game of chess, I've already got my next move planned...
And thanks again to Wrothy, I don't want to reminisce too much right now otherwise I'll get the post-con blues again and won't be able to sleep, but let's just say -
stumbling around in the rain, chatted about all things geek, dinner with Optimus Prime (!), walked young Jarrod to school with Rusty...
And back to work tomorrow

[abarron]

Very nice Two Face Ken

[bat_collector]

wow, that two face rocks!!!!

[Tony Coca]

Damn you dave johnson

[Alex655321]

Thanks for sharing the great pics Steve and Ken !

[mwf6171]

Awesome stuff! Wish I could have been there!