STGCC 2011 - Diva Stalking The Artists

2011 is the year that Red Dot Diva has been "feeling the graphic arts".

Ever since the art show at Wilkie Edge with Harvey Tolibao at the start of 2011, she has been increasing her social circle of friends who appreciate the art form, and counts herself fortunate to get to know many talented artists in recent months.

She cannot always afford getting sketches and commissions, but she made sure that she put in her few cents of support that hopefully pays forward.

Because of the many geeky friends she's got to know this year, stalking the Artists' Alley at this year's STGCC felt like hanging out in a bohemian geeks' village. Artists' Alley was also where she acquired most of her convention booty!

Here's a rundown of who she stalked:

Harvey Tolibao and his "Viscosity"

Before the convention kicked off, Red Dot Diva had already pre-ordered Harvey Tolibao's sketchbook called "Viscosity". When she visited his Artists' Alley booth to collect the sketchbook, she was really happy to see Juli and Kate assisting at Harvey's booth again. Warm hugs all around!!

"Viscosity" is a small, classily-designed navy-coloured sketchbook filled with Harvey's detailed works of art using ballpoint pens.

Just take a peek of these!

Like last year, Harvey was one of the most amazingly tireless comics artist at the show. From what Red Dot Diva noticed, Harvey drew lots of sketches (mostly for free) from morning till past convention closing hours. In addition, he managed to fulfill his assigned Marvel-related duties at their booth, the panels and Walk of Fame. All this without losing nary a beat of his effervescent personality and comical sense of humour!

He definitely made a lot of fans deliriously happy that weekend.

Dear Harvey, Red Dot Diva salutes you!

The Master, Leinil Yu

On late afternoon of Day 1, when Red Dot Diva dropped by to see her arty Indonesian friends at Ardian Syaf's booth and to say hi to Kelvin Chan (aka Rocketraygun) just two booths away, she noted a mysterious empty booth somewhere in between.

Stuck on the table was a cryptic and hastily scribbled note saying:
Leinil will be back at 1 pm tomorrow

To folks who were not in the know, they would not have even realized that reknown comics artist Leinil Yu was selling his sketchbook and art prints there.

Luckily, Red Dot Diva was able to track down the master artist manning his booth the next day.

Leinil was already entertaining a bunch of fans and friends who have flocked to his booth. While Leinil was signing the sketchbook for Red Dot Diva, she asked him what he thought of this year's convention.

"I really enjoyed this year's convention much more," Leinil said, admitting that he had more time to walk around the hall and that the show felt more vibrant.

Leinil's sketchbook is a full-coloured booklet consisting of several pages of his sketches, drawings and concept art. The images range from Marvel and DC characters to Star Wars to images of weaponry.

Rudy and Leinil

And while Red Dot Diva stood around DC artist Ardian Syaf's booth busily trading insults with artist Noval Hernawan, she saw Leinil take the time to talk to booth neighbour Rudy Ao, graciously offering comments about his art portfolio.

It is just wonderful to see how people get to effectively connect at conventions like these!

(By the way, if one hasn't seen Rudy's energetic artwork and paintings yet, go check him out at his Facebook page!

Fellow Indonesian artist Noval Hernawan also drew some puzzle sketch cards, which looked so awesome but one had to buy them in a set and many just couldn't afford to spend more that weekend. They were gorgeous though!)

Rocketraygun (Kelvin Chan)

At the end of the line and just beside Leinil's booth, was local artist Kelvin Chan who goes by the trade moniker of Rocketraygun.

Red Dot Diva first got to know Kelvin from the recent Comics Art Show 2011 and he had decided to join the STGCC Artist Alley at the very last minute. So, she was very glad to see a steady stream of interested folks and actual buyers at his booth during the weekend.

Kelvin was also helping film distributor MVP Entertainment promote the movie "Conan The Barbarian". And if one bought the first 50 special Conan art prints, they will receive one Free Movie Ticket to the movie.

Kelvin's old-school drawing style stood in contrast to the more modern style of art that is popular these days. But he managed to attract a fair share of attention from convention attendees. His sketchy cards were selling well and he told Red Dot Diva that he had received so many commissioned art requests on Day 1 that he had to stop accepting them!

It is no surprise that Kelvin is getting a bit of a buzz with convention goers and she hopes he'll be able to boost his profile even more.

If one needs more convincing, take a look at that gorgeous swoony Tony Stark/ Iron Man art print from her stash (see first pic above) drawn by Kelvin. Now, isn't it awesome???

"Malinky Robot" and Sonny Liew

Nestled in between Ardian Syaf's and Leinil Yu's booths was where kids and robots happen.

The soft-spoken and smiley Eisner-award winning artist Sonny Liew was ever-busy with the fans there, and Red Dot Diva succumbed to temptation by buying a copy of "Malinky Robot". Getting a free copy of "Secret Robot Spy Factory" together with the purchase was too much of a steal. Red Dot Diva felt so guilty.

Besides "Malinky Robot", Sonny was also selling the Vol 1 and 2 of "Liquid City" anthology, "Wonderland" and his original art pieces at the booth.

Red Dot Diva had to wait awhile to get her copy of "Malinky Robot" signed but what is time lost when there's this beautiful robot drawing Sonny did for her??

Sonny drawing a robot for Red Dot Diva

"Malinky Robot: Collected Stories & Other Bits” (Image Comics) by Sonny Liew, is such a charming collection of wondrous cityscapes and quirky characters. Red Dot Diva will probably blog more about this comic in the near future.

In the meantime, follow the "Malinky Robot" Facebook page for more news!

"The Messengers" by Curhat Anak Bangsa

Sometimes, it is difficult to notice a particular booth when there are so many things calling for one's attention! And that was how Red Dot Diva felt last weekend. There were just so many (and often schedule-clashing) events happening at the convention and she was trying to absorb the audio-visual assault as much as she could.

So, if it were not for fellow geek Chew who showed her some personal cartoon pen sketches by an Indonesian artist, Red Dot Diva wouldn't have taken some few minutes to check out Curhat Anak Bangsa's booth.

Curhat Anak Bangsa is an indie publisher based in Bandung, Indonesia and they were plying their Bahasa Indonesian and English books consisting of a range of mystery/romance ("Mantra"), action/history ("The Messengers"), criminal/mystery ("Insight"), action/adventure ("Karimata") and fantasy/romance ("Seeta").

Because their booth was nondescript or not constantly crowded with people, it was really easy to miss them!

The female artist named Tita Larasati who was at the booth, specialized in portraying expressive images of daily life, like a personalized graphic diary ("Curhat Tita"). And in Red Dot Diva's opinion, she was charging far less than what her sketches were really worth for.

After perusing some of their publications, Red Dot Diva decided to pick up "The Messengers" which was written in English. The series is about a young man Gatot who has been tasked to spread the word of Freedom in the land of Neveusantara. An apt message for the then upcoming SG Presidential Election, Red Dot Diva thought. (But we all know what happened now, don't we... sigh. We need our own Messenger Boy!)

There were many other talented folks at Artists' Alley whom Red Dot Diva didn't have time to stalk properly. And she hopes they managed to get the exposure they deserved during the convention.

Oh, and of course, there were those good-looking, humourous bunch of Marvel artists and perky Wendy Chew (aka Mashi) seated at Elseworlds' booth during STGCC. Red Dot Diva lurked around Elseworlds a lot on both days. And if one is nosy, look out for her separate blog post on her Elseworlds experience.

But first, she will leave her readers with this very special artistic biceps pic:

Diva, Noval, Kelvin, Wendy and Rudy

Do share your STGCC stash with Red Dot Diva on her Facebook page. She'd love to see what you got at the convention!