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Comic Con 2009: Day 2
Friday, July 24th, 2009 08:21 pmMy legs and shoulders are coming to a consensus that I am no longer their friend and that they may have to mount a mutiny against me. :p Otherwise, Day 2 was great!
Photos continue to be updated here.
Today's Panels:
Master Session with Mike Mignola: Watching Mignola draw was amazing, and my only regret was that the panel was too short! He almost answered my question about the dark spaces in his work (when you think you have enough dark ink, wait a moment, and then put in 10% more!), and talked about technique and how it evolves over time. Most of all, he explained how the pictures present themselves in his mind and how he works to put them onto paper. He was a little cagey about exactly how he works out the layout of the entire page (he said the answer to this would be long, involved, and boring), but he did make an excellent point about long, horizontal panels breaking up the flow of the page. Watching Hellboy spring from pencil to pen to sharpie was amazing, too. It was like watching a photograph come slowly into focus. I just wish I could afford to bid/buy the original artwork at the CBLDF auction!
The Design Process for Film and Television: I saw concept costume/prop design artwork for Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, Transformers, Iron Man, G. I. Joe, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Forrest Gump, The Mummy, and The Mummy Returns, plus other work the designers had done (like designing Madonna's Sweet and Sticky tour costumes). It was SO COOL and made me wish (for the millionth time this Con) that I could draw and go into this line of work. I hadn't realized how truly collaborative the work was; for example, one of the costume designs for Iron Man showed Gwyneth Paltrow's beautiful party dress as having a satiny sheen to it, and when I asked the artist how much say she had in the fabric, she replied that she'd been sent a swatch of the fabric already, but it was up to her to design the dress. Other designers talked about swapping their work with each other and how they process the director's wishes and suggestions ("Make the shoulders wider! Wider! No, wait, make the waist smaller!" etc.) They hinted that some directors micromanage pointless details and this drives them all crazy. The designer who had done the Star Trek costumes hinted that he had also designed some Klingon outfits, but couldn't show us the work in case they were used in the second movie and he was afraid of violating his non-disclosure agreement. After this panel, I was in awe again of the work and level of detail that goes into movie pre-production. (In a small side note, I was pleased to see that all of the costume artwork for G.I. Joe looked pretty cool, and The Baroness' costume has been neat from the start.)
Wednesday Comics: This was probably the least organized panel I attended today, but it was certainly the most self-congratulatory. As mentioned previously, I am really enjoying this project and highly recommend it to all and sundry. However, I wished that the panelists could stop yapping about how innovative they were, and instead talk about their process a little bit more. It was also pretty ironic that out of the 11 or so people on stage, only one was a woman, and all of them were white. Something truly innovative wouldn't have those ratios going on.
Overall Impressions:
* You, there. The woman who was dressed as San from Mononoke Hime and wore four-inch white heels. San. Does. NOT. Wear. Heels. And if you think she does or ever, ever would, you have just completely misunderstood the character and everything she stands for. Kindly get the hell out of my fandom.
* The above asterisk point speaks to the general trend in women's costuming I've seen this year that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
livyanne labeled "Attention Whore", which is unfortunately too on the mark. Granted, many female comic book characters are dressed like this, and so you're going to see that at the Con. But I'm seeing crazy sexed-up versions of many characters who would *not* dress crazily or sexed up, and I find this rather disturbing, especially when it seems to be younger women who aren't doing it to be ironic and have no sense of the political implications of what they're wearing.
* Side note to both of the above: I have seen three Slave!Leia costumes this year, and so far, not one of them was wearing underwear. God, I wish I didn't know that fact! D:
* Oh, and on the opposite end of the nude spectrum: reportedly, some guy tried to "dress up" as Dr. Manhattan by painting himself blue and walking around nude. I'm betting the Con staff put the kaibosh on that in super-quick time, and I'm just glad I didn't see it, because I am fresh out of eye bleach.
* There are some awesome steampunk outfits this year, and a lot of gothwear, too.
* The LINES. God, THE LINES. The secret to escaping them seems to be to ignore the big-time stuff and go for the tiny panels that very few people are interested in. I hope this strategy continues to work!
Tomorrow: Quick Draw! Hope Larson panel! Some anime! Shopping! Dinner with various cool people! The Torchwood and Dr. Who specials!
Sunday: Dr. Who panel! Swinging back to Kinokuniya to see if they'll haggle with me more over the X artbook that I want! More costumes and people watching! Very likely to buy tickets for next year!
Photos continue to be updated here.
Today's Panels:
Master Session with Mike Mignola: Watching Mignola draw was amazing, and my only regret was that the panel was too short! He almost answered my question about the dark spaces in his work (when you think you have enough dark ink, wait a moment, and then put in 10% more!), and talked about technique and how it evolves over time. Most of all, he explained how the pictures present themselves in his mind and how he works to put them onto paper. He was a little cagey about exactly how he works out the layout of the entire page (he said the answer to this would be long, involved, and boring), but he did make an excellent point about long, horizontal panels breaking up the flow of the page. Watching Hellboy spring from pencil to pen to sharpie was amazing, too. It was like watching a photograph come slowly into focus. I just wish I could afford to bid/buy the original artwork at the CBLDF auction!
The Design Process for Film and Television: I saw concept costume/prop design artwork for Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, Transformers, Iron Man, G. I. Joe, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Forrest Gump, The Mummy, and The Mummy Returns, plus other work the designers had done (like designing Madonna's Sweet and Sticky tour costumes). It was SO COOL and made me wish (for the millionth time this Con) that I could draw and go into this line of work. I hadn't realized how truly collaborative the work was; for example, one of the costume designs for Iron Man showed Gwyneth Paltrow's beautiful party dress as having a satiny sheen to it, and when I asked the artist how much say she had in the fabric, she replied that she'd been sent a swatch of the fabric already, but it was up to her to design the dress. Other designers talked about swapping their work with each other and how they process the director's wishes and suggestions ("Make the shoulders wider! Wider! No, wait, make the waist smaller!" etc.) They hinted that some directors micromanage pointless details and this drives them all crazy. The designer who had done the Star Trek costumes hinted that he had also designed some Klingon outfits, but couldn't show us the work in case they were used in the second movie and he was afraid of violating his non-disclosure agreement. After this panel, I was in awe again of the work and level of detail that goes into movie pre-production. (In a small side note, I was pleased to see that all of the costume artwork for G.I. Joe looked pretty cool, and The Baroness' costume has been neat from the start.)
Wednesday Comics: This was probably the least organized panel I attended today, but it was certainly the most self-congratulatory. As mentioned previously, I am really enjoying this project and highly recommend it to all and sundry. However, I wished that the panelists could stop yapping about how innovative they were, and instead talk about their process a little bit more. It was also pretty ironic that out of the 11 or so people on stage, only one was a woman, and all of them were white. Something truly innovative wouldn't have those ratios going on.
Overall Impressions:
* You, there. The woman who was dressed as San from Mononoke Hime and wore four-inch white heels. San. Does. NOT. Wear. Heels. And if you think she does or ever, ever would, you have just completely misunderstood the character and everything she stands for. Kindly get the hell out of my fandom.
* The above asterisk point speaks to the general trend in women's costuming I've seen this year that
livyanne labeled "Attention Whore", which is unfortunately too on the mark. Granted, many female comic book characters are dressed like this, and so you're going to see that at the Con. But I'm seeing crazy sexed-up versions of many characters who would *not* dress crazily or sexed up, and I find this rather disturbing, especially when it seems to be younger women who aren't doing it to be ironic and have no sense of the political implications of what they're wearing.* Side note to both of the above: I have seen three Slave!Leia costumes this year, and so far, not one of them was wearing underwear. God, I wish I didn't know that fact! D:
* Oh, and on the opposite end of the nude spectrum: reportedly, some guy tried to "dress up" as Dr. Manhattan by painting himself blue and walking around nude. I'm betting the Con staff put the kaibosh on that in super-quick time, and I'm just glad I didn't see it, because I am fresh out of eye bleach.
* There are some awesome steampunk outfits this year, and a lot of gothwear, too.
* The LINES. God, THE LINES. The secret to escaping them seems to be to ignore the big-time stuff and go for the tiny panels that very few people are interested in. I hope this strategy continues to work!
Tomorrow: Quick Draw! Hope Larson panel! Some anime! Shopping! Dinner with various cool people! The Torchwood and Dr. Who specials!
Sunday: Dr. Who panel! Swinging back to Kinokuniya to see if they'll haggle with me more over the X artbook that I want! More costumes and people watching! Very likely to buy tickets for next year!
