We attended last years Lightbox Expo and it was fantastic. Bobby and Kei freakin’ NAILED it. They leveraged all of their considerable knowledge and experience of conventions and workshops to create something truly unique. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a big convention guy, but to me it felt like they achieved a nice balance with it.

On top of the unbelievable line up in the artists alley, there were TONS of talks and demos by SO many amazing artists. We got to see old friends we hadn’t seen in 20 years, as well meet folks who I’ve followed for much longer than that. As it was informative, inspiring and really art-industry focused. Our takeaway was “well we’re definitely doing this next year and it will likely become an annual reason to head down south and see everyone”

While the LBX physical expo was postponed, they’ve been hard at work figuring out how instead to take it online this year. I know we’ll be participating and doing some streaming stuff but there’s going to be hundreds of panels and programs happening as well as a virtual artist alley which looks awesome.

Here’s a painting I started a couple of days ago that I will be live streaming during the event. Figured I’d start the underpainting now so it’ll be dry by then so I can come and finish with color. That tends to be more fun to watch I think. Maybe I’ll start another underpainting, then jump over to this one and finish it out? Like a cooking show!

Anyway, I just wanted to use this post to plug the event and encourage people to come if they can. The more the better. And if you’re into art there’s going to be something for you. I think in a weird way its sort of a benefit to do it virtually this year since the barrier of entry is much lower with no travel involved. Hope to see you there!