Anthrocon is over for another year

[tashabear]

This was my first year with my very own merchant table at Anthrocon, and it won't be my last. I had a great time, sold a bunch of stuff, got to make a few custom con badges*, and even had time to make a little something for me.

*I don't know if this happens at other types of cons, but at furry cons, attendees often get badges made with pictures of their characters and character names and wear them with the official attendee badge. They're typically collector's items; people cherish the badges from their favorite artists and often wear several at a time.

I realized when I got to Anthrocon that I didn't have any way to display my business cards, and no inclination to make a special trip to Staples to get one, so I took two halfbacks and a scrap from a belt I made for myself and made one. (Yay for the foresight to bring scraps!)

This is the first con badge I made. I really like how it came out. It also showed me how badly I need to work on my tight curves with my swivel knife, because the beads were tough.

This is badge #2 -- you may recognize Hazel on the left, from the first badge. I made this one for her girlfriend Allou. This badge taught me that I need to use more water with my paints than I'd thought, and that I need to work faster -- they dry quick.

I made this badge for my friend Sym. If you look closely, you can see a gleam in the hair. I applied a papercraft product called "Perfect Pearls" to give it a shine. This picture was taken before I applied the antique gel, which really made everything pop.

This is a custom flask that I did. It took me about four hours. It would have taken me two, but I was working on it on the last day of the con and people were doing the last of their shopping, so I got interrupted a lot. I'm really happy with the carving and paint job, but less so with the antique. The leather I used really absorbed it into the pores and it looked sort of... dirty. The customer was happy, though.

This is the last badge I made at this con. (I have one more to complete that I'll finish at home.) This is a rendering in leather of a badge that the customer had done several years ago. I finished this one in about an hour and a half, which was about the quickest of all of them, but I think I was finally getting in the groove. I didn't do a lot of interior detail; most of it was rendered with paint.

That isn't a weird hat he's wearing, by the way; it's a cloud behind his head.

All in all, it was a pretty profitable weekend. We made money, we had fun, tomorrow we drive 10 hours to get home, and next year we get to do it all again. (My leftover goods will be posted to Etsy next week. )

Edited July 6, 2009 by tashabear