A great time was had by all at Botcon this year! Some highlights:

- The Lil Formers booth. We sold many Lil Formers buttons… that was a good idea!

- Lil Formers/Plushformers cosplayer! Wow!

- I sat in on a podcast with the WTF@TFW gang. Check it out here.

- Activision’s War for Cybertron game was so good I went out and bought it… but man is it hard!

- Met lots of new transfans, and got to catch up with some who I have met before…good to see everybody!

I also did over 40 commission sketches over the weekend! Phew! A bit of everything - G1, Energon, Cybertron, Beast Wars, G2, Victory, IDW, Animated, and more. Though not one request for Optimus or Megatron (But I did sell a pre-made Optimus I drew as a warm up). Here are the ones we remembered to take pictures of:

As many of you know, my real job is to be Managing Editor of UDON Entertainment’s publishing line. If you’re new we publish Street Fighter comics, video game art books, translated manga and work all over the entertainment industry.

2010 marks UDON’s 10’s anniversary, so we’re coming out with our very own anthology/tutorial/art book - VENT! IF you knwo our other books, it’s a lot like our own version of Asian anthologies ROBOT or APPLE. The book features dozens of UDON artists providing original pinups, stories, and detailed art tutorials. I myseld did a new pinup and a tutorial (oh and also layed out the whole book!)

Here is the book cover, and some samples of my section:

The 248-page book goes on sale Sep 15th 2010, but will be premiering before then with a  special hardcover edition at the San Diego Comic-con (which is very soon!). Read the full details about the book and see a bunch more previews on the UDON blog.

Also you can pre-order the book now from amazon.com for only $26.39 (retail $39.99!)

So I did an interview in the most recent issue of ImagineFX, which for anyone who doesn’t know is the premiere fantasy and sci-fi digital art magazine. This issue profiled the UDON studio, so as managing editor I got to say plenty.

Here’s a little more detailed write up I did for the UDON Blog:

Issue #58 of ImagineFX magazine has been available in the UK for a few weeks, but has just now hit North American shelves. This issue of the ultimate fantasy and sci-fi art magazine profiles the UDON crew, talking about the studio’s 10th anniversary, working as a creative services house, the ins and outs of publishing, and more. Managing editor Matt Moylan, project manager Jim Zubkavich, and artists Omar Dogan and Jeffrey “Chamba” Cruz all give their thoughts about UDON in the article.

Also in this issue:
-UDON artist and regular ImagineFX contributor Saejin Oh provides a detailed worksop lesson
-UDONer Jeffrey Cruz gives an interview about manga
-Darkstalkers and Street Fighter Tribute contributor (and Darkstalkers Vol.2 cover artist) Warren Louw gets profiled as this issue’s “Artist in Residence”
-UDON artist Gonzalo Ordonez Arias gets tagged in this issue’s deviantwatch list

Read more about the issue here: ImagineFX #58

You know you’ve made it once you’ve been pirated in China.

I’ve had artwork stolen before, by general DA art thieves and even some business websites. But check this out - Lil Formers art on a Chinese bootleg Transformer! Awesome! haha. It’s useless to get mad about this, since there’s really no way to fight Chinese bootlegging. So just gotta laugh about it. Here are pics of the toy and the original art:

While the character isn’t the same (this is fan art of a non-TF character named Cougar) at least the vehicle modes match up(Jeep).

I did actually order one from KO toys , but a word of warning about them - If you are a MOC(mint on card) collector, don’t go near these guys. I guess they figure nobody would ever care about a knockoff packaging being in good shape. In the toy I ordered, they actually FOLDED THE CARDBOARD FLAP IN HALF to fit in int he box they chose. So my art was all crumpled up…oh well! Learned never to buy from them again heh.

Hey gang!

Don’t forget, I’ll have a Lil Formers table set up this weekend at TFcon in Toronto Canada, July 17-18th. Find all the info at TFcon.ca.

I’ll be selling prints (included TF Animated and G1 Battle scene, never before sold at a TFcon), selling buttons(news! some that were not even sold at Botcon!) and ove course doing commission sketches!

Also, that Night-bird figure the con has produced is pretty kickin’, check it out: