NYCC Acquisitions #4 - (this is a big one, folks!) Eric Canete Valkryie From the Depths

Eric Canete's art has fascinated me since I first saw it, probably 3 or 4 years ago. One of the wonderful side effects of going to so many conventions is artists new to you and that is how I found Eric. Back then I balked at his full figure prices and bought a piece from his portfolio, a sweetly alien Silver Surfer. Since sold in the periodic culling and focusing of my collection.But I kept my eye on Eric and his blog.

On that blog, maybe a year or so ago, Eric announced he was no longer taking convention requests for company/copyrighted characters.When you combine that fact with the fact that I have recently decided to curtail my habit of obtaining maximum number of convention sketches in order to focus my convention experience to both getting bigger and better pieces, i.e. more expensive and typically Dr. Strange or Starman related, and finding published art at dealers' tables, it seemed unlikely that Eric's work would be finding its' way to my collection in the immediately future. However, when I saw on his blog the quality of work he had been doing recently I knew he would be mine at NYCC! Although it was not published pages, if I did it right it would definitely be a bigger and better than average piece!!!

Since that time I have also learned that Eric was now cool with basically taking established characters as a starting point and then doing his thing with the central idea. But I already knew how I was going to bait this hook, and fishing may be an appropriate reference as I planned on asking for a character based underwater. I settled on an underwater Valkyrie, collector of warrior souls whose battles have forced them to their watery graves. I hedged my bets by pairing the underwater valkyrie request with a supreme sorcerer option, but I knew Eric would love that underwater aspect. My bait was taken hook, line and sinker. Look at what I done snared in my net:

Eric Canete 2012 NYCC sketch - The Valkyrie From The Depths

Thanks to Jason at Essential Sequential for the facilitation and for hosting Eric and all those other wonderful artists at his NYCC booth. And a special thanks to Eric Canete for the wonderful drawing and the wonderful conversation. Beyond that, he made my daughter's convention experience by drawing her in a nice 5 minute sketch. That smile on Abigail's face was a wonderful gift Eric, thank you!