I've always wanted a behind the table professional banner stand and searched around forever for prices. I found a local price that wanted $650 for each banner! (sooooo glad I never went with them!) But finally after talking with enough people about their own banner and the printing process, I settled on IMphotographics. They have quite the impressive portfolio of people they've worked with and their prices are unmatched.
So began the long process of deciding what art would go on my banner. At first I wanted to do a huge Pleasant Life one, but it was ending. then I was gonna do the Outcast, but it needed to be finished first. Then the Anna cover, but it wasn't tall enough. Then I was gonna put both Pleasant Life and Anna on it, but I wanted one large image that people would see far away. So I thumnailed out a new Anna Pocalypse pose. I was quite happy with it so I looked up reference and started to draw it out.
Here are my finished pencils of the Anna Banner:
Then I went over the lines with inks:
So then after that, I took it into photoshop and layed color flats and cleaned up the lines. I was quite anal about how thick the lines looked. I also changed some of the art digitally and made things a tad more defined and increased/decreased sizes of things. Then added lights and shadows, making a finished piece of art. Then I created a large 24x78 canvas and added my art. Then decided on a font (STAR TREK of course!) for my name and website. I added them in contrasting Green and Yellow colors to offset the orange. My buddy Grant said he didn't dig the colors cause they promoted the GREEN BAY PACKERS! Excellent point, as I hate the packers too. But any other combo of colors I wasn't happy with, so I stuck with the Green and yellow. I sent it off to the Imphotographics people and it was done and shipped to me within a week. It arrived today:
I cannot tell you how proud I am that I finally, finally have a proper backdrop for my convention tables. In the early days I had just a table and it was so plain. Once I had some rack standees with a drape over it and it fell over all the time and looked completely haggard. Then I did a huge posterboard/foamcore of Pleasant Life characters that stood on chairs behind me. Again, ghetto as hell. Nothing eye catching. And it took me three years to be able to set aside extra $ to get this thing done. But good thing I did because I evolved my art to a point to where I think I can be happy with this standee for a few years to come. If I had got one back in the early 2000's when I was starting out, I would never bring it to shows now, cause I'd hate the old art on it! and I am sure in a few years, I will hate the art on this one. Time will tell, but for now, I am enjoying the hell out of the moment. My first actual officialy professional looking standee! yay!
For those that want a good lead on Convention table banners and displays, allow me to now fully endorse: http://www.imphotographics.com Great people, great prices and fast as hell shipping. Thanks guys. Great job on my banner printing! You made my work look great to look at from up close and afar!
Also a special thanks to Tim Fischer for the layout advice and Grant Gould for walking me through the process of getting this done and advice. Couldn't have been confident in doing this without you!
Well, I got scanning to do folks. But to leave it off, here's a pic of the wife in her new Xmas present: A FAMILY GUY SNUGGIE! (Told ya we are addicted to the show!)
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