Community to the Max

Con season for me has wrapped but things haven't slowed in the least. I'm currently staring at my To Do list and there's at least 10 paintings on there that need to be done within the next month. But I'd rather be busy with my art than not have anything to do at all.

There's a lot going on in town!

First off, Lubbock-Con's Geek Garage Sale is next weekend if you want to check that out. It'll be at Tornado Gallery from 5pm to 10pm September 24th! So go by and raid through all the geek treasures that have been donated.

Next is something I'm super excited to be a part of. September 28th at 50th Street Caboose at 6pm, Lubbock-Con and I will be hosting an Artist Dinner! We're looking for local artists that are wanting a platform to get their art out, opportunities to show, and ways to get their name out! We'll talk about becoming a Lubbock-con featured artists and getting new talent in for our events! So check out the event link and come by!

October 1st is Ladies Night! We'll be featuring artist Indri Himawan! She'll be there selling prints and will have free limited Ladies Night posters. Lubbock-con will be hosting a costume contest, Jo De's will be selling comic book flowers, and Kayla Crow Photography will be taking pictures of the event! It's our last Ladies Night of the year so come out and celebrate with some geeky ladies!

The following week (told you there's a lot going on) is the First Friday Art Trail and on October 7th Star Books & Comics Downtown will be having a Halloween Artist Collective! Me and a bunch of other artists will have Halloween themed pieces up for display and sell! It'll be a spooky good time so make sure it's a stop during the First Friday Art Trail!

If you happen to be in San Jose, California (YEP) on October 7th, Anno Domini gallery will be part of the South First Fridays Artwalk and will be hosting an Art of Zine exhibit! I'll have both my sketchbooks and #Workcomics there on display and for sell! Neat, huh? If it's in your neighborhood, go and see (and maybe take pictures for me pleeeeeeeeeeease).

The next day October 8th, Lubbock-con is hosting Nerd Prom 2.0! Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at Star Comics and the event will be at Backstage. Me and the other featured artists will have special prom art for sell and you can also purchased limited prints! Get dressed up and party your nerd heart out!

Take a breath.

The NEXT day October 9th (can you see now why my To-Do list is so long?) is my Fall Pokestop Art Drop event! Everyone demanded it so we're doing another one before the year is out. We have even more artists this time and all the art will be Halloween themed because October, duh. Check out the event link and make sure to follow so you can get updated when the art starts to drop and get sneak peeks at the art ;)

Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's it. For now. After that, me and Rony are taking a big trip to Seattle for a week to relax as a mini-vacation, followed by a wedding, and then I'm working on a bunch more personal art and jewelry and writing! I can relax in time for the holidays.

Thanks so much for everyone support and following along! We've really grown in these past few months and I'm starting to make goals for next year. More paintings, more writing, more community events, and maybe a patreon? Who knows. Gotta work work work...

See you around town!

-Sam <3

The 1st Pokestop Art Drop

Very simply, yesterday was a good day. Woke up, made sure all the art pieces I had made were packaged and ready to go, and then laid on the couch for a few hours with the dog and cats watching the Overwatch Atlantic tournament. After a while, Rony joined me and it was good. All morning I did PR for the Pokestop Art Drop event, sharing and commenting to people and making sure everything was set to go. And then at 1, we headed out to Texas Tech to start leaving art pieces all over town.

Can I mention how crazy of a response I got to this little idea of mine?

In the beginning, I figured it would just be me leaving around 15 pieces around town for the Pokemon community to find. Nothing big, just a "hey if you're out hunting today you might find some art". Then, because I can't stop trying to help other people get exposure as well, I decided I would just see if any other artists wanted to donate some pieces for fun.

We had probably 15 artists? That's a lot that donated their time and efforts for free just to get art to new homes and participate in this little game. That's crazy.

And even better, we had people want to find them. Actively find them. As in I spotted multiple cars pull up to certain spots and people running out to find art. It was great. We even dropped some at some local businesses to get people to go there too.

Rony and I spent probably 3 and a half hours, driving and dropping art all over town and looking for some ourselves. By the time I got home, my phone was almost dead from moderating the event page all day, I was tired, but gosh I was so happy.

We will be doing another art drop event. Not sure when. Between the art business, shows, conventions, Ladies Night, and Geek Girl Brunch, my plate always seems full. But Hub City Comic Con is my last convention of the year, I have 1 Ladies Night left and it's pretty much planned out already, and my lovely fellow officers are helping with GGB. So I'll have time eventually.

Thanks again to everyone that donated their time and art and to all that thought a crazy art scavenger hunt across town was a good idea. Couldn't have pulled this off around you. Keep an eye on the events tab to the right for future stuff or subscribe to my events on the Facecbook page.

I'm going back to ducking my head in my office and getting things ready for Hub City.

Until next time

-Sam <3

Free Art and Pokemon

So I've been playing around the idea for an art drop for a while, but mostly didn't go through with it because I kept getting stuck at "what would I be promoting with it?" The answer is me. I'm promoting myself. I forget to do that sometimes.

So because I'm a masochist, I'm holding an art drop event this Saturday. And because I can't do anything small, I got a bunch of other artists to participate too.

Since Pokemon Go is all the rage (is that what the kids say?) we're going to be hiding free art at various Pokestops from 1-6! The artists will post in the Facebook event hints to where they hid it and hopefully people will find it!

If you'd like to get updates on what's dropping and where or just follow the madness, RSVP to the event page! Hopefully this goes well and lots of people get some free art and we can support local artists!

In other news, I lost a lot of my sketches so guess whose drawing like crazy to try and get together a new sketchbook for Hub City Comic Con.

The answer is me. Of couse.

-Sam <3

Ladies Night! One Year Anniversary!

Ladies Night 2016. You ready?

It's been a whole year since we started Ladies Night at Star Comics. It's been a crazy ride. I remember when we first started. I had emailed Robert, the owner of Star, asking if they'd ever done anything like it before or if they would ever do one. A few comic shops I'd known of in other towns had done Ladies Night so why not ours?

He wrote back that he was interested and we set up a meeting to talk about it.

Then we went to Staple, were dazzled by everything there, and then on Sunday, the day we were supposed to head back to town, Austin Books & Comics were hosting their own Ladies Night. Rony graciously sacrificed his sleep so I could go, offering to drive the 6 hour trip afterwards. A friend of mine and I went, met some of her friends, we all shared recommendations and talked with people there. Some of the guests from Staple were there too so it was a magical time. And I knew what I wanted for our Ladies Night.

We had no clue how big it was going to be. At the time, it was hard to gauge the nerd community. This was before the Lubbock-Con events started or our first con and everyone was still scattered. I just wanted some people to show up. We planned stuff for the kids, snacks, I made stickers and buttons. I stressed out a lot.

And then the day came, we figured out our first set up and low and behold, the place was filled with people! Like could barely move filled with people. We gave things away, sold out of little tote bags, the line to buy comics was to the door. It was crazy.

We built it and they came.

Our 4th Ladies Night is coming up on April 2nd. We've gotten a rhythm down. Make a place girls can talk and read and meet other girls, give the kids some activities. Give girls the space to talk without judgement and have fun. That's all I wanted.

So if you haven't come to one of our events before, come check it out and meet some other geeky ladies. We promise we're nice. Ask each other what comics are your favorite or recommend titles if they're new.

Thanks for supporting this little thing of ours. Hopefully we can keep doing it in the future :)

-Sam <3

Staple! Independent Media Expo 2016

And we're back from another convention! It's been a crazy month. Doing two cons within two weeks of each other was crazy. Now that I'm back home, I still have the jitters like I'm suppose to be working on something all the time. But Staple is over and our next convention isn't until May so for a few days, I am relaxing. Just for a few days though. Ladies Night prepping begins soon, after all!

(More on that later)

Last year we went to Staple since a few of my favorite comic book people were going to be guests there. We only went one day but it was an amazing show and oh dear god did we buy so much stuff. Like 4 car trips worth of stuff. It was awesome and we pledged to come back every year because Staple isn't a comic con, it's an artist show. No movie star celebrity guests or big box office name, just artists and writers and creators.

My people, more or less.

Then we started the business and started doing cons and somehow, we managed to get into Staple before they sold out. So we got to experience the other side of the show, as vendors this time.

Though we still bought a bunch of stuff. I don't know where we're going to put all the prints we got but my supply boxes are sufficiently covered in cool stickers.

We took off Friday and made it to Austin at about 8pm, going straight to the pre-show mixer Austin Books and Comics was hosting for the show. We bought comics, because of course we did, and got to chat to a few people also tabling. I also learned that the comic/art world is small and I will always run into people that also know people I know. Everyone knows everyone, I guess, especially in the con scene.

After that, we went to the hotel and I worked until 2am because of course I did.

Set up started at 9am and we managed to get our half table to look pretty good. The new displays we got for Lubbock-con were working out nicely and the new 11x17 prints came out really good and looked nice.

Show started at 11am and we were off. I think Rony spent most of the time getting up, buying things, and talking to every vendor in the room. Time flew by so fast I didn't even get a chance to look around our room until a few hours into the show. Everyone was so nice and chill and it was great to just talk to other artists about their business and mine and all sorts of things we love.

Another cool thing is we have two of our designs on t-shirts in the lobby available to buy! Both my Pokemon flash art and Murder of Crows sketch could be bought! I got one of each just to have. Don't judge me.

The day passed so quickly and before I knew it, the show was over at 6 and I had only seen one room of the two rooms filled with vendors.

Afterwards, we got a free BBQ dinner provided for us at Dragon's Lair comics and I had never been so happy for free food. There had been taco trucks outside the venue but I had only had time to scarf one down all day.

We shopped a bit there and I bough Sunstone vol. 2 and an ADORABLE No-Face from Spirited Away, knitting in a basket. It was so cute and I brought him the next day to put on my table. And then we ended the day with ice cream from Lick Honest Ice Cream which made homemade ice cream with odd flavors. I got grapefruit with champagne marshmallows and man, it was so good.

Day two was much more relaxed. We had breakfast with friends at Omelettry and then went to the mixer before the show for LGBTQA and Women artists. Did I mention how cool this show was?

I finally got to make it to the other room to shop and got my Through the Woods signed by Emily Caroll and Bitch Planet #3 by Robert Wilson IV. Both were super super nice. And then I shopped a bunch. Some artists I had seen last year so I went to their tables and some were new. I chatted with some that I had talked to at the mixers and geeked out over some witchy art.

I think the coolest thing was just how the artists at the show supported each other. I would go to their table and talk to them and they would come by later and talk some more. A vendor had had her money stolen from after the first day and everyone chipped in the next to try and help out. It was just the coolest experience.

Day two ended and we packed up, saying bye to everyone we had met and exchanging cards and Instagrams and things like that. We ate a celebratory Chinese food buffet and then started the long drive back to Lubbock.

Since I'm trying to get back into the swing of vlogging, we filmed a bit all weekend the the video is up if you'd rather go watch and see everything. We've had a pretty awesome start to our con season and I'm excited to see how YC3 will turn out. Thanks to everyone that came and saw us, all the new people, and all the rad artists! Hopefully I'll see you next year!

Now it's time for Ladies Night prepping. I'll have a blog up about that soon! See ya!

-Sam <3

Lubbock-Con 2016

So my plan for yesterday was to sleep and sleep and sleep and not leave my house because I was exhausted. Instead, I slept really late, ordered Chinese food, figured out my budget to restock my entire inventory, and started organizing the merch I had left for Staple. Lubbock-Con wiped me out, which is a good thing. Because it was pretty damn amazing.

Lubbock-Con was this past Saturday on the 20th at the Civic Center and happened to run not only during the pancake festival (which draws in an enormous crowd all day) but also the Little Mermaid musical. So think a crap ton of families wanting food and another crap ton of families with little kids dressed as mermaids and then an unholy amount of nerds and cosplayers all mixed together.

I was busy all day.

Set up was Friday night after I got off work and after that, my plan was to pull an all nighter to make sure I was prepared for Saturday. Mine and Rony's friend, Erica (Koolaid Girl Art), shared my table with me since it was her first con and first time selling. She's done our Ladies Nights at Star Comics before but hadn't ever made prints and sold those. She had far less stuff to get together than me since she doesn't try to make 10000 different things like I do (because I'm an overachiever) so she mostly helped me set up.

I didn't go to bed until 4am and that's because I was too delirious to see what I was doing and almost cried when I realized I needed to cut out Jolteon charms and oh god why did I make the design so spiky??? Woke up at 7am, panicked because I didn't finish, got dressed, and booked it to the Civic Center at 8am for pre-show finishing touches.

The line for the pancake festival which started at 7am was already long as hell and there was a line forming for the con. I scratched my display since a last minute trip to Michael's ended up with me buying new jewelry displays and quickly redid everything!

And from the time doors opened at 9am, I didn't have time to even breath. Instantly, we were busy. We got wiped out of dollar bills early, panicked, got some dollars back, and then almost cried when Rony showed up with a few more because why do people always pay for small stuff in 20's???

The entire day I only got to get up and walk and go to the bathroom once and it was during the Miss Lubbock-Con pageant when everyone was too busy watching to come by. Said hi to people, bought some Sailor Moon merch and a cupcake, ran back so I could prepare for Round Two.

I didn't even have the chance to take pictures of all the cool cosplayers. It was pretty awesome. Erica was busy all day doing sketch commissions and selling prints and every time I would finish one Eevee Necklace, another would sell out and I'd have to make more.

Everyone was super nice and excited and even though I was dead tired, it was a ton of fun. Everyone seemed to having a blast at the con and it was crazy how well organized everything was considering this was a con debut. (And we got free lunch which I was super grateful for because I was going to starve if I couldn't leave the table)

Overall, this has been the best con I've been to and a great start to the year. I'm sold out of almost everything which is mind blowing. I'm very excited to have been a part of it and can't wait until next year. Everyone was happy, business was good, and I had a lot of fun. Thank you to DeNae and the whole team that put this on and have been so welcoming and supportive of this little business of mine! You guys are great!

Now onto the big one, Staple.

After I sleep a bit more though.

-Sam <3

Black Friday Sale!

It's the final countdown until the official Black Friday, but we're starting early so we can get everything prepped and shipped in time for the holidays. If you head over to the Etsy shop and use coupon code BLACKWEEKEND, you'll get 25% off your entire order! Code expires December 1st! And we'll be adding more stuff over the week so don't miss out!

#Workcomics Vol.1!

I believe it was almost a month and a half ago when we got the harebrained idea to turn my daily work doodling into an actual thing. A book! A comic book?An art book? Well, all of those combined. We looked at different printers and figured out how we wanted it to look, how much it would cost, what size was it going to be? Well, I'm proud to see, it worked out. #Workcomics Vol.1 is here and in my hands and I'm so so happy

Isn't it cute?! (And the paper is so nice, like omg) And its the color of the actual post-it notes! Not only that, we kept all the creases and folds and tiny cat teeth mark the originals had to authenticate that yes, these were really post-it notes and yes, my cats really like to steal them.

These may be the only run of Vol.1 so they are limited in quantity and over all, just limited edition. Vol. 1 covers from April to June from when I first started it to about when we started getting the book ready for print.

The front cover is actually the very first #Workcomic I ever did and the back is brought to you by Lubbock's very own Star Comics who were gracious enough to sponsor the book so we could get it made. They've been so so so supportive of all my weird ideas and projects (like wanting to start a Ladies Night then wanting to make a baby comic book) so I'm incredibly grateful to them. Thanks, guys!

The books will be available to purchase online September 1st on my Etsy shop when it goes live again and they'll be $10. If you are in Lubbock this weekend, I will have copies at my booth for Hub City Comic Con so you can get them in person! And first! We are limited to roughly 45 copies so get them while you can!

And to celebrate the release, on September 1st I want you to do your own #Workcomic. Doodle at work (don't get in trouble though) either on some paper or a post-it note and hashtag it #Workcomics so I can see. You can tag me on Twitter @Raico13 or Instagram @ Raicodoll. It's like an art day!

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and this book! And now, back to prepping for the convention!

-Sam <3