OH, SAY CAN YOU CTN-X?

Yeah, I saw it.

And I'd like to say I rocked it...

But this year I was only able to attend for one day.

So I semi-rocked it.

I'm talking about the second annual
Creative Talent Network Animation Expo, of course.
Perhaps you remember me harping on about how fun it was last year over HERE?

And for all intents and purposes it looked like its awesomosity levels were equally off the charts this year. But I can't really prove it. I only got to go to one panel called SMALL SCREEN WONDERS which was about TV animation.


I mainly went to heckle Maxwell Atoms, but it was interesting to hear Mark McCorkle (Kim Possible, Penguins of Madagascar), Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), Sandro Corsaro (Kick Buttowski) and Rodney Barnes (The Boondocks) talk about their adventures in TV animation.

After that, me and Mr. Atoms wandered the floor to check out the artists selling their wares.

Storyboard sooper genius Sherm Cohen was hawking his 10 DVD set, Storyboard Secrets to a curious public. And while I haven't seen the videos, I HAVE seen the man do butt-kicking work since he's one of the Fish Hooks crew! In fact, if you watch the show, you might recognize Sherm as the face of Bud, the guy in the pet store at the beginning of each episode:


You and I could learn a TON from this guy (Sherm, not Bud). Hit up his blog for more info over HERE.

As I meandered around, I bought this adorable squid from Blue Sky character designer Marceline Tanguay:


You tell me where else you can get a beautiful drawing of a cephalopod so beautifully framed.

I had to stop by and see Phil Rynda-- he who designs characters and makes those awesome title cards for Adventure Time. He was selling art and handing out his latest comic:


And while at his table I TOTALLY mugged Adventure Time creator Penn Ward and made him draw in my sketchbook.
And then had Mr. Rynda join in...
And then fellow Adventure Time designer Andy Ristaino got involved.
The result was this:


And as you can see, the result was... how do the kids say, awesomesauce?

And speaking of amazing, check out this sketch Pascal Campion did for me.


I can't shout loud enough about how much I love this guy's work. His line. His sense of color. The mood he sets. I literally swoon when he posts his daily "warm up" drawings on Facebook. I should hate him... but he's too sooper triple nice.
So I'll just keep drooling over his paintings.

And then, check out this totally sooper cute sketch card by Louie Del Carmen. He's all sorts of rockin'.


Obviously, other stuff went down including chatting with the fine folks from Titmouse, some lunch time chat with character designer Chris Battle, and getting to watch a live drawing demonstration by one of my mega-favorite illustrators Tadahiro Uesugi.

Phew... and that's a taste of what I did in just a couple hours.
Can you imagine all the awesomeness I would have witnessed if I had got to go every day?!

If you can make it next year, you gotta hit this event. It's getting bigggerer and betterer every year!