Downtown Phoenix is a beautiful place, full of lovely art and architecture. Security was good around the entire area, so we never felt unsafe, even walking around late at night.

The Phoenix Convention Center is a great choice for a conference of this size. The rooms were set up well for the various panels, and the Exhibition Hall, while very crowded at times, never seemed unmanageably so. It's also right beside a light rail route, providing for easy access even if people are unable to find accommodations downtown.

Guests and Vendors

There were dozens of guests, some quite famous, especially among the geeky circles. Many were artists and writers for printed comic books, which I admittedly know very little about. There were actors, musicians – you name it. Stan Lee was there... somewhere. We were within 3 feet of Lou Ferringo at one point; I think he actually has twice the number of muscles in his body as other human beings. There were just a couple of guests I really wanted to see, and at least an equivalent number of vendors I was excited to meet.

Let's start with Wil Wheaton – because he's a great guy and deserves it. (Otherwise he might walk off the stage and we'll have to coax him back!) To be honest, I'd only recently started paying attention to Wil in his blog and tweets, primarily after seeing him appear in The Guild (I was late to the game on this one too, don't hurt me! *hides*) and Big Bang Theory. He tweeted recently, mentioning something to the effect of rather seeing Adventures Thru Inner Space in Disneyland than a pod-race based new version of Star Tours, and that single tweet knocked me off the fence and right into his fan pool. When he mentioned in a panel (The Awesome Hour) that the #1 game he'd like to do voice work for was Dragon Age... well, I fear he's got a fan for life now. (Hey, BioWare, are you listening?)

On the surface, the main talk of the panel was the introduction of his kids to classic Atari games, but he left us with a really great message about the importance of connecting between generations, and why video games kick ass. He is very entertaining to hear speak, and I was glad we chose to attend. It was… well, it was awesome. We also saw him on The Guild panel with Felicia Day, which had some hilarious moments ("That's like the goth calling the kettle white!" and pretty much everything about Red Dead Redemption) and a great number of deliberate non-spoilers for the next season.

Felicia Day was, in fact, the other "big name" reason I was excited about the conference. Twice we passed by her in the hotel foyer, and twice I had to stomp down my inner 12-year-old who was wanting to "squee" in a loud and startling manner. There was a bit of a queue to meet her at the conference table, but it wasn't too bad at all. Now, I know she seems like a very sweet and wonderful lady online, but don't let her fool you – she's... well, a sweet and wonderful lady in person, too. I did, however, have to chide her for breaking up with Alistair, but after she explained that all she ever really wanted was to be with Leliana instead, all was forgiven. (More Dragon Age stuff – if you don't know what I'm talking about, just ignore me. :) ) She signed a copy of the first season of The Guild for us, and made sure to spell my name right, which is by far the easiest way to put a smile on my face.

We spotted Travis Hanson, the artist who Phoenix Comicon's Twitter told us was trying to beat his previous record for the most free sketches done at a con. He did a sketch for both Leezard and I, which you can see below.

Meanwhile, we took a look through his artwork. I fell instantly in love with one of the prints, The Wishing Well, and had to buy it. We saw Travis several other times over the course of the conference, in a few different panels. I highly recommend checking out his webcomic, The Bean. (Incidentally, he did beat his previous record for sketches. The final tally? 970 sketches over the course of 4 days – in between doing 4 panels as well!)

We found the combination Weregeek/Little Vampires table. For reference, I've been a fan of Alina Pete for longer than I knew who Felicia Day was, so meeting her was quite exciting. The fact that she had taken a look at Planes of Eldlor, and took the time to draw one of her roleplaying characters (a lovely dragon) in one of the books I bought, was icing on the cake. We talked a good deal with her, and with the fine folks from Little Vampires as well. I had never seen Little Vampires before, but the characters are adorable. I read through the archives when we got back, and will definitely be following it from now on!

Next stop was Steam Crow, home to the wildly imaginative Daniel Davis and the crew of steampunk monsters from Monster Commute. A very cool fellow, Daniel clued us into a local group of artists in the Phoenix area called the Tiny Army. He was also obviously very passionate about his work and, like so many of the people I've encountered in the webcomics industry, he is genuinely dedicated to the community of webcomic artists. We also saw him in a really great panel, the Webcomics Academy.

Last but not least, there was Brian and Kristy Miller from Hi-Fi Colour Design. Interesting little story here – I had just picked up one of their books, Hi-Fi Color for Comics, shortly before the con, on a recommendation from Webcomics.com. When planning out which panels we were going to attend, I couldn't help thinking their names sounded familiar, but it took me a little while to make the connection. Long story short, they did a pair of excellent panels with demonstrations of their coloring techniques, detailed in the "Panels" section below. I picked up their second book as well. As I'm always looking to improve my coloring style, I'm looking forward to trying out some new ideas and seeing how they work!

There were many other amazing artists and cool people we got a chance to meet, but if I talk much more, I think my fingers will fall off. Thank you to everyone who made it an amazing weekend, though!

The Panels

The uproariously funny Con Horror Stories had us laughing hard enough that my jaw still hurts. The double-whammy of Wil Wheaton's Awesome Hour and The Guild panel with him and Felicia Day were both highly entertaining. Watching Mark Greenawalt's bodypainting display was intriguing indeed (note that the link is NSFW).

I'll talk a bit more at length, though, about the panels we attended that were geared toward learning more about comics, writing, and making art. There were several, and it's hard to pick a favorite, as we picked up a ton of great information from so many of them.

The first was Digital Comic Techniques, with Brian Haberlin. This was a very cool overview of some of the different programs which can be used for digital art and comics alike, and Brian is one heck of an amazing artist. His style is extremely detailed and ends up looking like a painting in the end. Most of the programs he showed us are ones I knew about, but there were a few extremely useful gems in there too. He talked about SketchUp, a freebie tool most artists know about - but I wasn't aware of the huge warehouse of free models available for download as well. There was also a freeware version of a terrain-building tool called Vue Infinite, which I'll definitely be checking out. He showed us some of how he uses Zbrush, and I think most in the audience were surprised to see the ease with which he constructed a face out of digital clay.

The Hi-Fi Colors for Comics and Master Digital Color Styles & Effects panels with Brian and Kristy Miller were both excellent, featuring demonstrations of the Hi-Fi coloring style. I hadn't realized that their company has worked with so many others, just about any big name you care to imagine – DC, Marvel, Disney, Dreamworks, Hasbro, and Paramount, among others. The first panel went all the way from initial flatting through to rendering, special effects, and amazing effect of properly utilized color holds. The second panel demonstrated how to color in several different styles, including cel-shading and manga-style toning. The ease of how Brian works with Photoshop was wonderful to see.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Making Your Fantasy World a Reality, with Travis Hanson. His artwork is simply enchanting – but I think I talked enough about that above. Just the fact that he proves that it's possible to make a living and support his family by creating the fantasy world he so loves is inspiring in and of itself. He had some great advice regarding book printing and pricing, the sizes of prints that sell well, and how to present them. He also reminded us of the importance of keeping a webcomic's site active, even on non-update days. Whether it be sketches or blogs, that kind of interaction is very important.

Finally, there was the Webcomics Academy panel, featuring Daniel Davis of Steam Crow and Denny "Dennmann" Ricelli of Get That Chicken. They went over many important things, like making sure you know how much time you can dedicate to your comic before you decide on an update schedule, getting a domain name, publishing in a tangible form for Cons, and various ways to market as well. Blambot was brought up as an excellent source of fonts, as well as dafont.com and 1001fonts.com.

Things We Learned

• Okay, okay, we'll buy the "How To Make Webcomics" book! I don't think I've heard the phrase "must-have" associated with anything that many times in my life, ever.


• Prints seem to be the best way to attract new blood to a table. They don't even have to be associated with the comic, just with YOU.


• Wil Wheaton is awesome.


• Black and white films are good to watch for getting an idea of how light and shadow work on forms. Ironically, black and white films will help you be a better colorist.


• The less you have to pay to create your merchandise (and to get it from point A to point B!), the more money you can take home at the end of the day. This one should be a "duh", but sometimes, we just don't think in those terms. (Corollary – Don't cheap out on the quality though – buying in quantity will get you good deals on good-quality merchandise.)


• Sell a book for at least enough to cover the printing of 2 books. If you choose to use a distributor, keep in mind that they'll take a hefty cut of the profits as well.


• For webcomics, a good way to decide on an update schedule is to decide how much time per week you can work on it, find out the average amount of time it takes to do a page, and then see how many pages you can produce based on those numbers.


• Don't obsess over stats. Google Analytics is awesome, but you can get so caught up in the stats that you forget to do anything else - like your comic.


• Your work won't appeal to everybody, but you might just be the highlight of the con for somebody.


• There is nothing quite as amazing as meeting other creators in person.


• Have a pitch! We got asked many times to explain what our webcomic is about, and if you're not prepared to grab their attention, it shows!


• Comment on other people's comics! Artists love to know that you're enjoying what they do.


• Get involved with a local network. Artists, especially webcomic artists, are an amazingly supportive group of people on the whole. Having a support network will keep you going like nothing else will!