Artists My Beloved + Commissions Open Again

If you saw some guy in a Luffy cosplay wearing glasses and a Luffy pin holding the strap on the Straw Hat together, that was me.


What do you do when you get paid big cash for working throughout an entire month? Make poor financial decisions is what. And my way of making those decisions came in the form of a local convention I went to this month. In all seriousness, it was genuinely such a fun experience not only being around various other nerds, having people recognize me as Luffy, and calling every other Luffy there "Bon-Clay" and "Bon-Chan" (peak character btw, so glad she's in a lot of the games) but also because of the artists that were around. Only now did it fully set in that I was not the only one around my area making cool art, and I'm so glad there were so many other artist checking this convention out. I took my sister along as well, and she had a great time, buying some stuff of her own.


Something that I had considered doing at other conventions was to try and talk to the artists who were at their alleys, or at least talk to them more... but honestly I felt like I would come off as creepy if I were to try that... but I still wanted to show my support to their craft, so I just went and bought a bunch of stickers, pins and keychains from them instead, that way I could at least financially support them. But this time, I decided to try and show my art at least and I got a lot of lovely reactions from so many artists. Many praised my work which really boosted my confidence in my own abilities for one thing, which I felt was really needed after my whole episode of constantly wondering "what exactly am I good for...?" for a good couple of months there. The best part was how my sister got inspired to share her art as well and she got a lot of praise as well for everything she had done. Two encouraged me to make a game with my skills, one asked why me and my sister didn't have a table set up, I let some artists know about a local shop that sells stickers, keychains and other knick-knacks made by local artists, and one let me in on a local sticker maker in return. I also found an artist who made Divorced Dofladile (Doflamingo X Crocodile but divorced) keychains and earrings and I decided to introduce them to MelonTeee, mainly because I had a strong feeling her videos would resonate with them, sweetening up the deal by mentioning how she's a lesbian ZoSan (Zoro X Sanji) shipper, so her opinions can certainly be trusted.


Besides those artists though, I also ran into a few comic artists, some who have worked on the industry for a long time and some who went and launched their own comics. I bought two graphic novels, one about a zombie apocalypse but with Disney styled cats called Feral and another made by a metal band called Punk Rock Time Machine, both of them even signed by the respective artists at the booth. There was another person who did tarot readings, and figured "Yeah sure, why not get a reading while I'm here". The first time I truly learned about tarot cards was through Persona 5 and I've held some respect for them since then, reading a bit more about the cards and where else they appeared in other media, but this was my first time getting a proper reading. So I sat down, decided that I would let the cards do their thing without my input and watched as the fortune teller did their thing with their Fallout themed tarot deck. And y'know what? The cards read me pretty freaking well. They correctly read my passion for the jobs I held, the fact that I wear my heart on my sleeve but also have difficulty expressing myself, and the fact that I had recently developed feelings for someone... then they told me that 18 is my important number for fate... So that was an experience, we'll have to see if anything happens on the 18th of this month. I had a few other minor experiences happen as well, such as someone giving me a Luffy sticker they bought because of my cosplay and the fact that I ran into the same Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers cosplayers three times during the day. I high fived both of them during the third time while we were leaving lol.


I also got to high five Sean Chiplock, tell Jamieson Price about how he'd be the perfect fit for Brewster should an official Animal Crossing Movie dub come out, show Melissa Fahn "Cowboy BeBop at His Computer", and a pic and autograph by Maurice LaMarche while he complimented my cosplay (He didn't know who Luffy was but he liked his fit). Sean and some other voice actors actually did a panel and mentioned how companies especially like to hire voice actors that people are passionate about and y'know Sean... I gotta say... I'm very passionate about voice actors, I'm so glad they exist to breathe so much life into all sorts of characters, I get excited whenever I hear a familiar voice come out of a character's mouth, and I love hearing about everything that goes into voice acting. In spite of all that though, voice actors are criminally underrated and I strongly feel that they deserve so mucn better. Sean I may have flubbed up my words with you, especially the first time, but it's because I've heard you in so many characters and I just didn't know where to begin or what to say to someone like you. You may see yourself as some average guy, at least that's the vibe I get from so many other voice actors, but regardless... thank you for being so kind and patient to this awkward Luffy-cosplaying guy. You made his day.


Ah yeah, commissions are also open once again, recently finished one up too. $45 as a starting price. Ya want more info, check out the Commissions tab. I styled the sheet after older fighting games in the 3D era because I thought the look of those games had a lot of charm to it, and also because I figured a mockup character select screen would be much smaller and less of a pain to deal with compared to my first sheet.


And now for a list of artists I met at this convention from taking their business cards and pics of their fliers


And just for the sake of it, here are some artists I met at other cons