Ok it has been a week and a bit since I have returned for gcx, I would have wrote this sooner but I haven't been feeling well. It seems out of all the events I do each year, the events in Florida always make me sick afterwards. But anyways! Lets get into it!
Firstly, the prep leading up to this event was much more than previous years. Having merchandise made out of paper gets heavy fast, and so I had to ship a few things ahead of time. Big thanks to Big Ant for holding my boxes before the event! I also had to figure out how the heck I was going to get my giant original down to Florida. Its like 20x30 inches? Way too big for a suite case. I ended up going to Lowe's and bought a big piece of r-tech foam board, the kind we use to insulate our houses. I cut it into 4 pieces and used 3 of them. I made a hole in the middle piece that is exactly the size of the art and then duct taped it all together. Then I stuck it in a big media box from FedEx and sent it down ahead of me. Holy heck it costs a lot to FedEx big art from Alaska to Florida! But it was for charity so all's good.
Miraculously I was able to fit everything between 3 suite cases and keep it under 50lbs per bag. No heavy bags this time! At Arctic Comic con the guy across from me had this really cool roller bag as his carry-on that he used for 11x17 prints and I have bought one since then. This thing is perfect for transporting original paintings! It is a little wide and I definitely clipped some people who walked too close to me in the airport.
Now lets get in to what kind of merchandise I brought to GCX. Going outside of Alaska means I can't bring everything, its just too heavy and not possible. Fortunately this is a gaming convention and that made my decision making real easy, I just brought all of my Destiny fan art. Everything I brought consisted of prints, stickers and original paintings. This year I made sure all of my original paintings were matted and presentable instead of in a portfolio binder like last time. I want people to be able to envision this on their wall, and its easier if the painting is already in a matte. I brought all of my Destiny related paintings, but I also snuck in some Alaskan scenery too! Thank you to everyone who picked up an original. It means the world to me!
Last GCX I had only started the raid boss and landscape series, I only had a couple of them and they were a big hit. I kept getting asked to do certain raid bosses and sceneries and I knew I just had to do more. So for this event I did 3 more raid landscapes, 5 more color raid bosses, and then I experimented a little and did 8 black and white raid bosses as well. I like listening to metal and I love the art style on a lot of those album covers, and surprisingly enough that style was a big hit at GCX, especially Riven and the Witness! It was really cool seeing the content creators stop by my booth and pick up a raid print that depicts one of their achievements or fond memories from the game. Raiding in Destiny holds a special place in my heart, and I'm glad I am able to share that with the community. Along with the prints, I also brought a good collection of stickers. A lot of them were just sticker versions of the prints I brought, but I also brought a lot of the pokemon and dnd birds too. They did surprisingly well!
Here is Alaska I have 6 foot tall grid panels I can hang my art on and everything looks more presentable. Unfortunately they are a little too big and heavy to bring with me to Florida so I had to get creative with my set up. I used my square grid panels to build a wall and left a window to pass things through, but that by itself was super wobbly. I could literally see it fall on the first day if someone bumped it, but luckily I brought my backdrop. Instead of hanging prints behind me on my backdrop, I used it as a brace instead. I rested the top bar along the top of the wall and zip tied it down. That made it so much better! All in all I am pretty happy with how my setup turned out for GCX 2024, I just wish the rack for my original art was a little thinner so that it would fit in my suitcase (it now lives with my friend in Florida).
This year was the first year for the charity auction! I contributed 3 pieces to it, including the big piece I did for Elysium. It didn't feel right trying to sell it since it depicted their characters, I didn't want it to seem like "hey I drew your characters and now you can buy it", ya know? So using it to raise money for charity was the perfect solution! Through the entirety of GCX we raised $777 for charity, all funds going to St. Jude's. If you picked up one of those charity pieces I would love to see where they ended up!
Seeing everyone again and meeting new people is always my favorite part of GCX. Over the course of 3 years going to these events I can now call fellow content creators friends and that is just so surreal. Being picked out of a crowd because of the destiny art I draw is still not a thing I'm used to, I am always surprised every time. I also got quite a lot of signatures in my sketchbook this year too! As usual I pick up quite the haul from the artists this year. One stick out from this year is the Divinity prop I picked up. I saw it and knew I just HAD to pick it up. And not only that but I got to nerf Saltagreppo with it too. Getting it home wasn't that fun, but it is here in one piece and I plan on making a really cool display for it in the future. With the state of Destiny 2 I was worried about vibes and excitement for GCX 2025, I wasn't sure if I was going to make the trip down next year. But my worries were put to rest, it seems like no matter what happens with Destiny people will still use GCX as an excuse to come out and see everyone. So yeah, see you guys in 2025!
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