Creative Collective of Ashley Webb and Mat Kaminski

Thursday, April 7, 2016

First Panel, First Books

Let me start off this post with a double post of inspirational soundtracks.

Perturbator in general has been keeping me pumped for the past couple of weeks in terms of the inspiration and drive for my personal projects. That being said... Honor: Decoded is back in session, but more on this later...

Alright, now that the music that's been stuck in my head can now get stuck in your head, let me begin the real purpose of this post. It's mainly to talk about things that happened both before, during, and after MidSouth Con.

Quite a bit has been transpiring since before the convention even began, what with the start and release of two pieces of work that I've been contributing to: Lunch Doodles and a short story by my fiancee, Ashley Webb, entitled the Tawny Woman.

Lunch Doodles is a collection of drawings and paintings that I've done during my lunch break at work. Each one is voted on from about 5AM to about 12PM and the one with the most votes, or whoever got their vote in first, is the one that I draw. If you'd like to be a part of it, check on my Facebook page during the weekdays to vote! I typically post these as early as I can on weekdays so that I can get as many votes as possible. My plans with these are to eventually make a volume every other convention, and then maybe one day turn into a submission based annual or quarterly that other artists can contribute to.

If you'd actually like to be involved, email me or contact me on Facebook and I would love to get you involved.

The second thing that I was going on about earlier is that I actually got one of Ashley's stories bound up in a little book! It was written by her, but I helped to design the layout and painted the cover. It was partially a surprise for her, but she seemed to enjoy it. The awesome part about it is that it's a horror short story! You'll have to either ask her about it, or find us at a convention so that you can inquire about some of her writing. She typically writes horror or dark fiction. In time we'll do even more of these so that she can fill up a table herself with nothing but her writing and tapestries!

If you're an aspiring writer or a writing enthusiast, check on her tumblr page to follow along with her daily prompts or read some of her entries on the topic that she posts for the day!

Fast forward to the day of the conventions...

First, let me say that I had a blast at MidSouth Con and I actually recommend it to anyone that is in the Memphis area. It was filled to the brim with stuff to do and people to meet.

Our table... filled with art and a super excited Fictional Tortoise!

This was an example of one of the days that are table was set up. It was overflowing with art and tapestries. Again, can't speak enough for the con itself. It was filled up.

A few of the pieces that I worked on during the con.

I had never actually been on a panel before, so that was a much different experience than what I was expecting... and couple that with the fact that it had been my first run at it, and why not dive into the deep end with six.

Here's the panel layout that I was on...

Getting Started In The Comics Industry

Our panelists will discuss how they go started & will give tips on how you can get into the Comics industry.