Illustration Arts Fest is BACK on 22 & 23 September, LASALLE McNally Campus

Colourful, quirky and unabashedly indie, the Illustration Arts Fest (IAF) returns to LASALLE McNally Campus this coming weekend on 22 and 23 September.

The Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC) put the show together for the first time in 2016. This will be the 3rd anniversary of the show, and it is already one of Red Dot Diva's favourite annual art event.


Here are 5 Reasons Why You Should Come To This Year's IAF too!

1. Vibrant Artists Market
The Artists Market at Illustration Arts Fest is the best thing ever. It is busy, inventive and vibrant. With over 100 indie artists and illustrators from Red Dot Island and nearby countries taking part, no wonder it's a crowd puller.

Red Dot Diva recommends those who visit IAF to check out the booths by her friends and acquaintances, like Jessica Emmett, Inky Cat Studio, The Rolling Ronins (with Wayne Rée & Rex Regrets), Danger Gene, toy designers Daniel Yu and Ziqi Wu, and not forgetting, the comic creators from COSHStudios.

The art style is wide ranging and eclectic, as the list of artists include the popular Muffinsaurus, artists Billy Yong and Zu Orzu, Fingersmith Letter Press who specializes in illustration and hand lettering, Inez Design with embroidery art and Rakasa Print Studio from Malaysia who does silkscreen art.

STGCC 2018 Recap - Diva Reviews the Good and The Bad of This Year's Convention

The Singapore Toy Game and Comic Convention (STGCC) 2018 wrapped up its 11th year last weekend, and despite Red Dot Diva's misgivings before the show, she did manage to have quite a lot of fun at the show.

It was much more low-key than previous years, and there are a few reasons for that, like late announcement of guests, high ticket prices and a lack of new show ideas, but Red Dot Diva will get to more of that later in this article.

After taking some days getting over the STGCC hangover, and speaking to other geeks about what they thought of the show, here's a general recap of the good, the bad -- and some ideas on a way forward to a more vibrant convention.


THE GOOD:

Movie/ TV presence via Sony Pictures SG and HBO Asia
It seems that Reed is finally getting the idea that fans absolutely LOVE being part of their favourite movies and TV shows. So, having Sony Pictures SG set up a two-booth event promoting their upcoming movies, "Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse" and "Venom" at the showfloor, was a superb idea.

People could watch the trailers, take photos with cosplayers, or with props...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Red Dot Diva (@reddotdiva) on Sep 8, 2018 at 5:44pm PDT

STGCC 2018: An Marvellous Interview with Ryan Meinerding

The media preview for Singapore Toy Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) 2018 was held at the lovely Funan Showsuite yesterday. Together with other invited media, Red Dot Diva got to meet some of the convention's guests, like David Finch and Olivia Mears. However, there was one particular guest whom she really wanted to meet - Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios' Head of Visual Development.

For those who love Marvel movies, Ryan Meinerding's concept art has appeared in the films, and is responsible for designing all of Captain America's costumes. Also, remember Coulson's vintage Captain America trading cards? Those images were Ryan's artwork as well!

Being typical Red Dot Islanders, Red Dot Diva and her geek bro Jedd Jong went all out kiasu-mode, and had planned to tag team for this interview a week ahead. They did not want to miss this precious opportunity at all!

When interview sessions opened, they were first to plonk down beside Ryan for their short 15 minutes with him. Cheong, ah!

HIS 10-YEAR JOURNEY WITH MARVEL STUDIOS
Jedd opened the interview by posing a question to Ryan about his 10-year journey working for Marvel Studios. "You know, I was brought on board by Jon Favreau previously, and I got to work on Iron Man I and got work on Mark 1, and did keyframe with Adi Granov on Iron Monger, and we were trying out, sort of the boot test sequence and what he was building in his suit in the garage, and a couple of other things. Then, after that project, Marvel asked me to come back, to stay on board and help them figure out on their next films. So, I got to early passes on Captain America and Thor, after that period of time, we went straight into Iron Man 2 and Thor."

Ryan Meinerding went on to mention that he got Charlie Wen on board for "Thor", and later on, for The Avengers movie, he expanded his team of artists to include Andy Park, Rodney Fuentebella, Jackson Sze and eventually Anthony Francisco. With a sense of wonder still in his voice, Ryan said, "The fact that the cinematic universe has grown from the singular movie to something that’s 20 movies large and still going strong is really incredible."

He has yet to visit the "Marvel Studios: Ten Years of Heroes" exhibition held at the ArtScience Centre, but said that he wants to find time to see it during his stay here.

Warner TV Escape Room Challenge Is Back at Centrepoint, 3 to 9 September

The Warner TV Escape Room Challenge is back!!!

From 3 to 9 September, the escape room based on the channel's TV series - "The Big Bang Theory", "Gotham" and "Lethal Weapon" is all set for fans to participate and solve. Compared to last year's challenge, the game plays have levelled up as well

Here are different game room levels:

Escape Room 1 - Difficulty Level 1 - The Big Bang Theory
Help Sheldon Cooper locate his missing comic books!

Escape Room 2 - Difficulty Level 2 - Lethal Weapon
Deactivate the bomb before it hurts hundreds of innocent lives in the Central District!

Escape Room 3 - Difficulty Level 3 - Gotham
Escape Gotham City Police Department’s jail cells with your fellow cell mates!

Superfriends in Singapore Comic Art Gallery 2018 features Adi Granov, Mark Brooks, Agnes Garbowska

Next weekend's Singapore Toy Game and Comic Convention will please many comic book fans as a talented group of guests from the industry are set to converge at the Marina Sands Expo to appear on panels, or do signings and sketches.

To provide an appetizer for the island's pop-culture event, there is going to be a pop-up comic art exhibition launching a few days before. The "Superfriends" in Singapore comic art show will be held from 4th to 11th September at the Visual Arts Centre near Dhoby Ghaut, 11 AM to 8 PM daily. (Note: The gallery is closed to the public on 7th September.) .

Fan favourite artists Adi Granov, Mark Brooks and Agnes Garbowksa will have their original art featured at the exhibition. These include illustrations of comic book and pop-culture characters like the Avengers, Spider-man, Batman, Teen Titans and My Little Pony, as well as art pieces specially conceived and drawn for the show.

STGCC 2018: Booth Highlight - Spice Up Your Art Collection with Graphicurry!

Pop-culture icons, well-known personalities and celebrities are transformed into colourful, humourous yet spot-on caricatures in the deft hands of Bangalore-based artist Prasad Bhat. His design studio and company name Graphicurry is as wittily conceived as his art pieces.

With Prasad's special knack of being able to distill the essence of a person's features into impressive and unique Vector artwork, he has amassed a large number of followers and fans spanning across the globe. Red Dot Diva herself is quite a fan of his "Evolution of" graphic series.

This year, Graphicurry will be making an appearance at the Singapore Toy Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) Artist Alley for the very first time. Red Dot Diva managed to ask the company's brainchild Prasad Bhat some nosy questions, before he makes his way to Red Dot Island.

STGCC 2018 - Adi Granov, Stephanie Hans, James C. Mulligan, Simone Legno and Reis O'Brien Announced as Guests

ReedPop sure took their time in announcing the third wave of STGCC 2018 guests, but the list was just released a few hours ago, and many of them are returning guests. These include more comic book guests, namely Adi Granov and Stephanie Hans.

Currently working exclusively for Marvel, Adi Granov is already familiar with fans, as he has been attending STGCC as a guest for a few years now. He is best known for his conceptual and illustrations in the MCU, which include design work for conceptual designer and illustrator on movies such as the "Iron Man" movies 1 to 3, "The Avengers", "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Black Panther".

It is nice to know that Stephanie Hans will be returning to STGCC as well. Her vibrant artwork (with a penchant for the colour red) has graced the covers of comic titles like Image Comics' "The Wicked and the Divine 1831", Dark Horse's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12", and Marvel's "Jessica Jones" and "Ms. Marvel" - just to name a few!

Collage of artwork by James Mulligan

Also meeting the fans again this year's convention is Disney's official artist James C. Mulligan, whose ties with the Mouse has spanned over two decades! His art of well known celebrities and Disney characters are simply gorgeous. He also does very entertaining performances and live drawings on stage, as those who were at last year's STGCC can attest to!

On the local front, Mr Kiasu's creator Johnny Lau will be meeting fans and signing the 10th volume of the beloved comic book series at Action City's booth during the convention.