Brighton Film and Comic Convention 2015

Conventions are fantastic places. There is something so very special about an entire building full of people who are all there because of a shared interest. They are a place to see and discover new things, meet new people or even rekindle an old interest. A place to admire people's effort and work that they put into what they love, and a place to find inspiration for your own talents.

They're also a good place to spend lots of money and get annoyed at yourself for not taking enough money for that thing you've always wanted and you knew it would probably be there and you kind of deliberately didn't take enough money because you thought you might buy it...

and I'm pretty sure these can apply to almost any type of convention, for anyone with any interests. Conventions are special, and I would highly recommend that you find one for something you're interested in and just go to it.

A few weeks ago, the conference hall of the Hilton hotel in Brighton was rammed with guests for the Brighton Film and Comic Convention. As I've written about my interest in visiting conventions before (here and here), I couldn't resist the chance to go to a Film and Comic Convention in my own city.

So now I am just going to overload your browsers with pictures of some of the fantastic costumes and creations that were on show that weekend. These are some of my favourites that I saw, and I can't thank the people wearing them enough for letting me bother them with my camera. Enjoy! Please excuse the varying light conditions. I'm not one for on-camera flash and the lighting was not quite as forgiving as the MCM Expo from the last time I uploaded any cosplay.

Dawn of the Rise of the Cosplay of the Original Planet of the Apes 

The first 'new' Harley Quinn I saw in the day, accompanied by who I assume is Joel from The Last of Us.

When playing Mario Kart at 200 CC (Reverse) goes horribly wrong... 

Now-non-canonical-characters have a place to hang out. Apart from that middle guy might be Kylo Ren. He can do what he wants.

After some consideration, I've decided, not to endorse your park...

Scarecrow and Harley

A Tusken Raider gets straightened up before heading out onto the convention floor.

And here we have, I feel, the clear winner of my imaginary cosplay competition - 

Jump in the line, rock your body in time.

Then came the shopping. After looking at custom Nintendo 64's...

Jurassic World Monopoly...

and an imported copy of Jurassic Park for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis...

...or Jurashikku Pāku to you japanophiles out there...

I finally settled on some badges and keyrings, which were much more in my price range.

It wouldn't be a complete convention trip without some minor celebrity spotting. Ticked off the list from this one we have -

• James Marsters
• George A. Romero
• Carl Weathers
• Kenny Baker

...which is a pretty solid victory, if you ask me.

For some reason I've just been drawing a lot of classic video game characters...

Since I last wrote about my love of doodling but lack of skill (way back here in 2013), I have just kind of kept going. More and more, especially over the last year, I have been doodling every week, if not every other day.

Most of my creative time these days is spent using the pen tool on Adobe Illustrator, which is not very similar to the way that I draw at all. I use Illustrator to create, stylistically, very different things to how I actually draw. One day I hope I can smoosh the two together, which is one of the primary reasons I have been wanting to practise so much. It helps me think about shapes, shading, framing and how light is falling on the subject. It's like having to relearn everything I know and love about photography in order to be able to illustrations or designs with the same amount of depth and detail I try to get into my photography

The biggest step for me in this is dealing with colour. Physical, on paper, not going anywhere colour. Digital colouring that I use for my poster designs (and actually for two of these drawings, King Dedede (the penguin with the hammer) and Pikachu) is something that can be altered, changed, inverted or completely removed at the click of a button. These following doodles have all been painted with watercolours, which is something I had never even used up until about a year ago. It has been a real learning process, but has helped with my confidence when it comes to committing to paper. I have started to build up a collection of coloured pens, as well as watercolours and brushes, enabling me to experiment and doodle as I go about my life outside of my flat.

So, here is a collection of classic video game characters, hand doodled and water coloured (apart from, as mentioned, King Dedede and Pikachu, who were drawn, scanned and digitally painted in photoshop). I added their names in Japanese, as originally I had a big awesome font with their western names on...and then decided that it was too distracting. They also serve as flash cards to help me remember my Japanese kana. Also, some coloured lens flare has been added for dramatic effect - not effecting the original colours of the paint too much though.

ENJOY!