Last weekend, we tabled again at North East Comic Con. I was again, very nervous to see how it would all go, but then it ended up being a success in the end.

The morning of each day was a little slow, but soon it picked up and a lot of people were stopping by to buy things (mostly because this time I brought around the Disco Fett helmet!)  Plus, having some variety, ie magnets and stickers certainly helped as well. Also, I feel that we are so close to Christmas helped a bit. People were coming to the con to look for not only something for themselves, but also something for a loved one.  The fact that our items were on the small side certainly made it easier for people to consider them as stocking stuffers!  Saturday proved to be a strong day, but then Sunday, I figured I make our table a bit more interesting...

After taking a break from theatre, I soon found that I needed some sort of creative outlet. I soon found that book covers was that outlet. It was unexpected but growing up, I loved the design of posters from movies and musicals. It made sense in a lot of ways for me to transition to it.

I had dabbled in design and Photoshop a bit, so it was a new art form that intrigued me as far as something that could be challenging and satisfying. I had started designing some for my friend Matt Phillion's book series, "The Indestructibles" which focused on teenage superheroes and their adventures as they fight to protect the world and understand their place and roles. It was a wonderful combination of the comic book world and the world of prose and fiction. I couldn't wait to get started with the covers.

I found myself creating in different ways. Soon, I had a few different designs.  It started with using simple clip art to pushing myself to try other ways to build a cover.

From there, I learned more about dimensions and cover sizes. It was also fun since while one sees so many different book covers in their life, you don't really think that there would be even a possibility that you would design one, let alone several. That all changed for me.

Matt soon gave me a great opportunity to design a series of his short stories, released in e-book form.  That again gave me a chance to really explore different styles and come back to my design roots in Photoshop. There was a great deal of manipulation involved but still I had to keep a lot design aspects in my mind.