Lubbock-con 2018 has come and gone and boy has it been a ride.
This year I shared my table with my friend Koolaid-Girl Art again and Rony tabled for the first time! He invited out friend Kyanne to share his so we were a fun little crew!
Friday I took a half day at work so I could finish preparations and set up. Me and Erica got to the venue at about 2:30 and spent two hours figuring out a set up for all our stuff. There may not look like much, but it's a lot of work to get it all coordinated so people can browse through it easily!
I ran and got some last minute display items, we walked a couple of dogs from our dog walking gig, and then spent like 3 hours getting the rest of Rony's prints and banner screen printed.
Our friend V.M.Bee helped us screen print his giant banner and it wasn't easy! So thank you very much to her!
I spent an hour or so getting prints scanned, packing merch away, and then we worked from 2am to 7:30am getting last minute prints and stickers made. Yep, we didn't sleep. At all.
Since Rony needed to set up before the con we quickly took showers and got dressed and headed to the convention center at like 8:30 am. It was chaos but somehow we pulled it off. I got my last minute Symmetra, Reinhardt, Moira, Mercy, and Elias prints done just in time for the con!
Day 1 was crazy busy. We always have a ton of success at Lubbock-Con and this year wasn't any different. Erica (Koolaid-Girl) was doing commissions and had a ton of them while I was getting a lot of people buying the Scratch off tickets I made, stickers, and a lot of my original prints.
This year was the first year I had more original artwork than fan art and I was pleasantly surprised by the reception. My seasonal witches, witch hands, and stickers did really well! And people really liked the scratch offs so that made me super happy.
Saturday I spoke on the Wonder Women of Art in Lubbock, Texas Panel with a bunch of amazing women. We talked about what we did, our journeys, insecurities and how we knew we were on the right path. Our moderator was Will Terrell, local hometown hero and an old friend from when I was in high school. It's crazy to think but I've known him for about 11 years! He's an amazing artist who currently works in California so it was awesome to be able to be on his panel!
After the con, we went and had dinner with Rony's family and I started to fall asleep while eating. 36 hours later, we were home and I passed out instantly.
I slept 12 hours. It was wonderful.
Sunday we were in much better spirits. We did some more last minute sticker and prints made, had coffee, and got to take a bit of a break before the crowd came. Sundays are always slow starts because we live in a church town. It doesn't really pick up until like 2pm, which I was fine with. That gave me the chance to get organized a bit.
Erica went and talked on a panel about making comics with the rest of the pros (she makes a webcomic called Living When Dead. You should check it out!) and I proceeded to draw on a fake scar for Marisa's cosplay. Behold, the best cosplay and only picture I took this weekend.
She was Ben Swolo. It was magical.
The day went by super fast once it picked up. Marisa was there to help me out and we finally got to walk about and check out some of the booths, but I didn't even get to see everything. A gentleman actually bought my Xenomorph painting and with 10 minutes left in the convention and 6 scratch offs left, a girl found the ticket with the Batman Painting. I was so happy both of these got a new home!
We had so much fun and it's really great doing a convention where you know so many people tabling and working it! I got to see my friends all day long and I knew we were taken care of if anything were to come up. It was like being surrounded by family all weekend.
Thank you again to everyone that came out to see us, bought merch, and to everyone that's new after having met you! There were so many enthusiastic people that I felt proud of my art and felt like I was on the right track with it. It's very different from what it was when I first started out, but I love the direction I'm going.
We celebrated a good con with our usual Chinese buffet dinner and went home to relax. Next weekend we're going to have our garage sale and I have to unpack the car still, organize everything, and re-open the Etsy store. Rony's also planning on trying to get his online store up with everything he had. Be sure to follow his Instagram and Facebook if you want to check out all his art!
If you didn't get to make it out, I'll be listing everything available on Etsy! New stickers, new prints, new zines. I have a ton of stuff :)
Lubbock-Con, you were great and no matter where we are, we'll be back next year.
-Sam <3
