This may or may not be a ploy to get traffic. 9_9;

Hey hey hey! So my insanely awesome year of the Paigey Roadshow is starting to gear up! Got lots of new merch cooked up and I'm excited to be vending at some all-new, all-different venues, including some roller derby bouts and concerts in my home state of Maryland alongside my BFF's store Little Asian Sweatshop. The first up in my adventures is in two weeks- Charm City Roller Girls Home Season Double Header on Saturday March 10 from 5:30-10:00 at Du Burns Arena in Baltimore. If you're in the area, I suggest you check it out! CCRG helped me get my first exposure in the art world when I did derby portraits and bout posters for them back when they first started up.

Speaking of all-new, all-different- I'm taking a little art time to myself for the next couple weeks and doing some redesigns of the characters that got me into comics in the first place, being the Uncanny X-Men. These versions of the characters have been running in my head for awhile so why not draw them? Trying to have a callback to the X-Men of the late 80's when everyone had different looks and everyone had their own unique presence in the team. And lots and lots of COLORS!

Rogue!
“You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
My version of Rogue still has the Carol Danvers/Ms Marvel powers (obviously) and since she's super strong and near invulnerable with the power of flight, she doesn't see the point in working out as crazily as some of her teammates, hence her being a little curvier. Plus she's from the south and eats fried everything. And she's voiced by the chick who did her voice in 90's X-Men, because that is my definitive Rogue voice.

Dazzler!
“Call me Dazzler, darlin’. That’s my name — and that’s what I do. Dazzle people.”
My version of Dazzler (one of my all time have comic characters) is a roller derby girl, obviously a lead jammer. And she probably sings in a band or something when she's not playing derby. I imagine her as one of those effortlessly cool girls who has a zillion awesome projects going on but can't hold a day job to save her life. So you always end up paying for her beer. One of my fave details I came up with was the mirrorball helmet, and the runs in her opaque blue tights were fun to figure out how to draw (esp the blown-out crotch, which is always the first to go with me at least). 

I've got ideas for the rest of the core Blue/Gold team as well, which I'll put up as I finish. I'm actually working on a Gambit next. Which should be fun, cuz I DO NOT LIKE Gambit, so this will be my attempt at making a Gambit I like while still making him recognizable as Gambit.

Commissions and Marketing!

This past week I finished two big commissions and I'm sketching out a third and I did a whole bunch of marketing/promo for Little Asian Sweatshop! So yeah! Keeping busy!!

Portrait commission for tattoo artist Cyn Rudzis,
in trade for my Wonder Woman tattoo

Roller derby portrait commission for
Kansas City Banked Beauties member Ms Kara Whiplash 

I'm pretty proud of these two new commission pieces. I think it really shows what I can do when I don't have the customer meddling so much in my creative process and actually trusting me to deliver them a top-notch illustration. My commissions are still for the most part closed, with a few exceptions if the money's good or it's a project that sounds particularly fun and non-stressful. I'm trying to figure out a new price point for them since I'm now freelance and can actually focus more with a quicker turnaround in between lettering books. I've also got a lot of other drawing projects I'd like to do as well though once my plate is clear, including various fanart, fabric designs for dresses and I'm actually kicking around the idea of a semi-autobiographical webcomic way way further down the road. I know, freaky. Like, try and take all the random little anecdotes and stories from my life and make them into 1-2 page vignettes that are basically all the stories and tangents I go off on while drunk/stoned but in illustrated form. Part of the appeal for me doing this is that there's no continuity to worry about writing wise, and it's the sort of format I can do as a webcomic. And I can voice my opinions and philosophy on life, and share some of my silly stories about things and eventually do enough of them to collect into a book. Plus the CATHARSIS. My God... This is def something I want to put on the backburner for AWHILE. But once it gets going it could be really cool. We'll see.

In other news I've been submitting tips and singing praises of my best friend Fenny's company Little Asian Sweatshop to various nerdy/geeky fashion websites and gotten some nice returns!! So far we've gotten press from So Geek Chic, Boing Boing, and Fashionably Geek! 

We're also going to have this ad in the program
for the upcoming games for Chesapeake Roller Derby.

Threadless Pinup Contest

So Threadless has a Pinup design contest right now, which I couldn't *not* enter. Even though I've never entered anything on Threadless before. It's running from Jan 30th- Feb 20th and my piece is up for voting until this coming Friday February 10th. So please vote for me and give me as high a score as you see fit (*cough* 4-5 *cough*).

If I win I get a nice little amount of money that I can use to pay my COBRA and some ghastly credit card debt. And my art will be on a shirt that you can buy, which is exciting and has never happened before. I may even submit more art to Threadless, as people have been asking me when I'm going to put my art on tshirts. May as well get paid for it, instead of paying for it.

Also please vote for me because right now I'm losing out to a Photoshop brush that's actually of another dude's painting which this entrant is trying to pass off as his own work, which is SO NOT COOL. I dont mind losing if it's to a worthy opponent, but so far pretty much all of the other entrants are swiping, tracing photographs of models (like Bettie Page), using 3D programs like Poser, using licensed characters or brands, using clip art or it's just... well... BAD. Anatomically, compositionally, like not even student work. Like NO ONE would want a shirt with that on it and Threadless would be fools to think it would sell (or in some cases- not get sued). Being someone who worked professionally on tshirts for over 4 years I reluctantly have learned a few things about designing tshirts, and now that I'm not in that hectic, stressful environment where I am no longer designing with a gun to my head I can sit back and let the last few years worth of knowledge that was crammed into my skull properly marinate. Anywho, if all works out and I win I hope to try and get a few more shirts done thru Threadless in the future and hopefully help bring it up to the higher standard of cool shirts that it was when I was too intimidated to enter. Cuz there is a lot of riff-raff on that site right now.

VOTE HERE:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/399173/First_Mate

Thank you!!