Star Wars: Blogs | Drawing in the Empire | My Celebration Europe Adventure

Drawing in the Empire

by: Joe Corroney

date posted: Jul 20, 2007 9:34 AM | updated: Jul 22, 2007 4:24 PM

My Celebration Europe Adventure

Just like Celebration IV earlier this year, Celebration Europe has now officially come and gone and it was another very exciting and memorable experience. It was also another week of very late nights and very early mornings but every hour of sleep lost in the name of Star Wars was worth it. It seems whenever I'm around my fellow Star Wars artist and Lucasfilm friends or even the Star Wars fans in general I find myself hanging out into the wee hours of the morning having a great time not wanting the fun to end no matter how tired I may actually be. I was so completely spent when I got back home finally from all of the traveling I just collapsed and slept for almost 12 hours. It was my birthday too the day I got back from the convention and to paraphrase a certain archaeologist, I'm pretty sure it was the mileage and not the years that caught up with me... at least I hope so anyway.

This was my first trip ever to Europe and I'm really glad and very fortunate for the opportunities like this that Star Wars has given me over the years. I would have never imagined even a year ago that I'd get to travel to London, display and share my artwork with the fans there and experience the city like I did this past weekend. I want to give a huge thanks to our tour guides Paul Bateman and his lovely girlfriend Athena for taking our group of Star Wars artists (which included Chris Trevas, Brian Rood, Tsuneo Sanda, and Lawrence Noble) around the city after the event. They were really great hosts and there's no way we could have seen the entire city like we did had we been left to our own devices. Fellow Star Wars artist Cynthia Cummens also played tour guide for a group of us on Thursday night since she spent some time last summer in London and knew her way around the area very well (thanks, Cynthia!).

I'd also like to thank the Animation Art Gallery who sponsored the Celebration Europe Art Show. Russell, Emma and the rest of the crew were especially helpful and friendly and took good care of us during the entire time of the event. Of course I'd like to thank the folks at Lucasfilm for their guidance and support too before and during the show. Thank you everyone!

Some of the other highlights from the event for me were meeting Jay Laga'aia (Captain Typho), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Kamay Lau (Sei Taria from Episode One) who I was able to chat with when each stopped by to visit the Art Show and also getting to meet some of the European SW.com bloggers, Dark Horse.com forum members and Myspace friends and costumers I've had contact with over the past months and years. I hope all of you had a great time as well.

I'm busy gearing up for another appearance at San Diego Comic-Con next weekend (I'm at table BB-08 in Artist Alley) and finishing up some new Star Trek artwork before I leave so I have to keep this short but I took pictures from Celebration Europe to share with everyone which you can see right here.

Also, on Monday after the convention I was able to check out Star Wars: The Exhibition at London's County Hall (read more about it here and visit the official website for the exhibition here). I took a lot of pictures of the amazing costumes, props, and models on display there so if you're curious you can view those here.

I've also added a new Celebration Europe album to my Myspace profile so if you're a registered member you can view even more pics from my London adventure there as well.

Just because Celebration IV and Celebration Europe are now over, there's still plenty of reason to keep celebrating Star Wars 30th Anniversary. New comic books, toys and collectibles, Topps trading cards (shipping July 25th), novels, etc. and even more conventions (like Comic-Con next week and another Star Wars convention in Dallas in October) are always just on the horizon. I think this party will keep going strong for a long time to come.

It was really great meeting everyone in England last weekend and I look forward to coming back again sometime. Thanks for making me feel so welcome there. I'll update with another post as soon as I'm back from Comic-Con in San Diego. I hope to see some of you soon to celebrate thirty years of Star Wars there as well!

~J
Joe Corroney.com
Drawing in the Empire/MySpace

http://blogs.starwars.com/joecorroney/70

Click here to hide comments for this entry

	jedi_iain From A Certain Point Of View
date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 11:07 AM It was great meeting you at the weekend, now I just have to get a nice frame for your print (and the others I bought) I hope the folks at comic con show more interest than some of the fans at CE. I was the tall, bearded guy who couldn't believe some people's lack of interest in the art. I always thought we Brits were suposed to be cultured!

	Joe Corroney Drawing in the Empire
date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 11:13 AM Hey Iain! It was great meeting you at CE. Thanks so much for buying my CE print and for your enthusiasm for my artwork. I really wish there would have been more fans like you there too! Even though there wasn't as many sales in the Art Show for most of us at this event I still had a great time, especially meeting fans like yourself Thanks for the support!

	ewanandhaydenfan5 I Have You Now!
date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 11:23 AM find myself hanging out into the wee hours of the morning Hehehe...SW fans are such a bad influence! Thanks for sharing your CE experiences and pics. I had such a blast at C4, I wish I could have attended CE. Hope you had a happy birthday!

JediMelindaWolf
Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.

date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 2:53 PM

Happy Birthday, JC!!!

The Star Wars artists are awesome! My lighter pocketbook after CIV is testament to that!

Could be that, since this was the first Fan Celebration in Europe, fans didn't know quite what to expect. Now they do, and, hopefully, will be more prepared next time around. (I hope there will be a next time around.)

I'm sure you don't remember me, but it was a pleasure meeting you at CIV (I'll put my plug in here and say I'm one of viagoangel's friends). My daughter, who went to CIV with me, has commandeered your print for her SW-themed room. It has a good home

there on the ceiling (she ran out of wall space after CIII!). It looks great!

MTFBWY

	Joe Corroney Drawing in the Empire
date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 4:30 PM Thanks, Melinda! I do remember you from CIV. And I think you're right about the fans in Europe too. Next time they'll hopefully know what to expect and will come prepared and buy lots of artwork like the U.S. fans

	Joe Corroney Drawing in the Empire
date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 4:31 PM Thanks for sharing your CE experiences and pics. I had such a blast at C4, I wish I could have attended CE. Hope you had a happy birthday! Thanks so much!!

janlomona
Smugglers Rants

date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 5:19 PM

Well I'd like to raise my hand and say "I BOUGHT LOADS OFF JOE!" Hi there, Mark from Lightsabre here. It was a pleasure to meet you and buy those brilliant prints, I can't believe it's a week ago already since we were there. In fact, as I write this it's 12.17am and I think this time last week I was chatting with you and Bonnie Burton - how cool is that!
Get yourself back over here soon mate, there's a bottle of cold San Miguel waiting for you!

Joe Corroney
Drawing in the Empire

date Posted: Jul 20, 2007 5:33 PM

Mark! You did buy a lot of artwork from me

I was going to drop you a line this weekend and personally thank you for purchases (and for the beers!). I'll still do that anyway. It was really great *finally* meeting you and your wife and Louie too. All of you were so great and friendly and made me feel very welcome. Keep up the great work with Lightsabre and I can't wait to see you again soon sometime.

	janlomona Smugglers Rants
date Posted: Jul 21, 2007 9:42 AM Totally our pleasure, looking forward to the email and thanks for being so approachable and cool. Bex and Louis say hi too!

david_overton

date Posted: Jul 21, 2007 3:43 PM

JC - you made mine and my daughters day - amazing art and I got a steal with the original. I've posted my piccies up at http://uksbsguy.com/photos/starwars.

I'll be keeping an eye out for your work. It was amazing to meet you and see the work you do and the man behind it. I still talk about the weekend to my wife who is "just glad it exceeded all expections", which I think means "alright already, I get that it was great, now move on". You helped make it so inspiring.

ttfn

David

	Joe Corroney Drawing in the Empire
date Posted: Aug 06, 2007 8:56 PM Hi David, It was great meeting you at CE! Thanks for sharing the pictures and for purchasing my original Star Wars artwork at the show. I really appreciated that. Your daughter Molly made an incredibly cute Padawan by the way Take Care and keep in touch!

Argo 4

date Posted: Sep 19, 2007 8:15 AM

Hi Joe,

Paul here (Argo is a verrrrry old moniker of mine) - I just spotted this, thank you so much for your kind words. It was a pleasure hanging out with you. You better hook up with us sooner next time!!!! Athena has been pestering me to get better at correspondence and write to you properly, but I'm hopeless at getting around to writing!

We're both very glad you had a good time, just wish we could have entertained you for a whole week, keep up the great work genius - and stay happy.

Paul.

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