I’ve added my recent artwork from the past few months to the Illustration section of the website. I didn’t always update the weblog here when I finished something, but of course I share them all on Twitter and Tumblr and whatever. Anyway, there are all here now and it’s good to have it all in one place. Actually, they’ve already been here for a few days. Once again I updated without saying anything until now.

I’ve got more artwork besides this that I have yet to share, but keep an eye on things and you will be seeing it very soon.

Sayonara.

It seems sometimes that I live my life one TFcon at a time. I couldn’t wait to get to the show this year, see all my pals, buy all the toys, and celebrate everything that it great about the Transformers franchise and the people who love it.  That said, I was busy getting everything together all the way up to leaving home for Mississauga, because I had a panel to present that weekend and plenty of prep work to take care of for it. So, in that sense I was too busy to get hyped. Somehow I managed to mostly get everything done on time, though I didn’t sleep much. In fact, I didn’t sleep much during the weekend of the show either so… whatever man!

Anyway, the entire convention was amazing as usual, though it had kind of a lower-key, more relaxed vibe all around this year. I’m not sure why that is, but I know other attendees shared that sentiment and I enjoyed it.

Here are a couple shots from the costume contest. This amazing Prowl costume was the winner of the event, and I really dug that Override!

My panel on the Japanese franchises that influenced Transformers was well attended and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. At least, everybody laughed at the parts that were funny so that was pretty good. The whole idea was to show how and why robots became such a huge part of Japanese popular culture, leading up to the transforming robot toys that we know today. There were a lot of twists and turns that make this story so fascinating, and when it was over a lot of people told me how interesting the panel was and how much they enjoyed my performance.

Honestly, I was incredibly nervous beforehand. Not about speaking in front of an audience, but about running out of time before getting through it all. When I finished with 5 minutes remaining for questions I was so relieved because those 5 juicy delicious minutes were a virtual banquet compared to what I thought I was going to be left with.

The tech crew did an amazing job at helping me out, and I just noticed in these pictures that they changed the lighting to cyan to match my tie. Right on! Yeah, I wore a tie for my panel. I felt I had to look the part to be a panelist. But I drew the line at tucking my shirt in.

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The main event of the weekend was certainly the appearance of the voice of Megatron, and one of Hollywood’s most prolific voice actors, Frank Welker. I didn’t get to meet him but I did go to his panel, where he was a very entertaining and gracious guest. But then something shocking happened.

As was the case with Peter Cullen’s appearance last year, questions were to be submitted via e-mail ahead of time to be selected by the guest. I missed the call for questions so I wasn’t expecting to get to ask anything. But, somehow… I did! To make a long story short, I did get called up with a few others as part of some group questions. We were so incredibly surprised and had no idea how it happened. When it was my turn to ask the question from the pre-approved sheet provided to me, I had to milk it for all it was worth! So I said “Hello sir, I’m not sure how I got up here, but I’m very happy to see you! Apparently, my question is as follows:” I was not supposed to say any of that extra stuff, and I sincerely apologize if anyone was upset by that, but it was funny and Frank laughed! It was a surreal moment and when I asked why this happened I was simply told to pay it forward. I absolutely will 1000 times.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/Pbijz9lA1Yw[/youtube]

This video comes from Neil Temple, who has uploaded many highlights from TFcon 2016 on his channel that you can check out.

This isn’t even scratching the surface of all the stuff that happened at the show this year. There was a fantastic panel with Dan Gilvazan and Flint Dille, a Faction Feud filled with drama, a script reading with a unique storyline and some unexpected cast members (Dr. Evil and the Swedish Chef?), sketching with cool artists in the lobby, Slurpees, and a bunch of other happenings that I probably can’t even remember, including some after-hours shenanigans.

A big shout out to the staff and volunteers at TFcon and the usual crew of cool people who I get to hang out with once a year. I especially need to thank my roommate, the TFcon legend Guber who let me use his pictures for this report. He needs to exploit his brand.

Here’s all the stuff I bought. You can check out this post of my Tumblr for the full rundown of each item.

When it was all said and done, this TFcon was exactly what the doctor ordered. I needed it. When Monday morning came around and it was time to go home, I knew that I was going to be exhausted very soon, but I still felt totally healthy and alive like I hadn’t felt in months. I was completely ready to do it all over again, and I still am.

Well, I would be ready but let me work on next year’s panel first!

Sayonara.