Bitty Bettie and Mini Marilyn

Working on a bunch of 'chibi' styled character drawings for fun and possible future merch, and started with two of the biggest icons of pinup art, Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe.

Art dump! October 2012 Edition

Just a few pics I was working on this past month!

A gift for my husband Phil Balsman, who turned 34 this month!

A commission for an 11 year old fan named Kayla
from her mother for her birthday.

A birthday present for my BFF Fenny of Kira from her
most favorite movie ever, Xanadu.

 And two fierce warrior wimmens!

Red Sonja- for fun!

Taarna from Heavy Metal, cuz I felt like it.

Tura! Tura! Tura! (Also: Inking)

So I had the honor of being personally invited to take part in Tura! Tura! Tura! 2, an upcoming tribute show to the great, late Tura Satana, of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! fame out in Palm Springs, California. I will be showing alongside several artists I have looked up to for several years and get to have my work in front of fans from the mysterious west coast. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a prolific phase in my career and other galleries take notice and invite me to take part in more shows.

::cough:: Gallery 1988... ::cough::

The secret I found to getting Tura's likeness as Varla right?
Flared nostrils.
Really!

***Editor's note: For the next few paragraphs I go on and on and on entirely too long about inking and my art process. If you're into it, awesome. If not, the above info with accompanying links and pictures below are all you really need to know.***

Flyer for the show by one of my artistic heroes,
the great Mitch O'Connell.

 I'm super excited about this show, as this is my first time testing out my new technique of toning my original inks on vellum with grey scale markers and graphic white on the gallery scene. Anyone who's given me time to flap my jaw about it would know I've *really* wanted to get into the low brow gallery scene for years now, but for the longest time being a primarily digital artist all I felt I could really offer was prints. Which while nice, unless you want to cough up the dough to get nice ones made, it's hard to break in to the kind of price points that original pieces go for. I never thought anyone would want my original inks for my pieces, as I though they were 'ugly' and on various pieces of scrap paper and had a zillion corrections on them.

Digital version!

Up until about 4 months ago my process of creating art was to lightbox my rough pencils onto bristol board and then tighten them up from there, then ink directly on top of raw pencils. While this worked for me for several years, I had noticed that when I transferred my images via lightbox, I lost a lot of the detail and energy from the original roughs. Eyes wouldn't line up, subtle hints of smiles would be lost, kinetic lines that came together perfectly looked stale and forced the second time around. Plus a lightbox can be a bit of a pain in the ass if you don't have a set area for it already, with a nice dark room to use it in and plenty of extra bulbs for when the lights start to dim (which will make tracing an aggravating process). Add to this headache by using a super thick, rough piece of bristol to draw on to, with a very hard pencil (I tend to use a 2H) which will put grooves in the surface of the paper if you dig with a death grip like I do and you're setting yourself up for a potential nightmare scenario. Once I would get to the inking stage, which is going directly onto my finished pencils (that are now all marred from my pencil-diggings), I need to be extra-careful as I only get one real chance. Unless I *really* screw up and have to black out an entire portion, re-draw it on another piece of paper and paste it in in Photoshop. And that leaves the re-sale value of the original pretty much nonexistent. But if I screw it up minimally with the inks I'll have to go over with white-out. Which leaves additional snags as inking on top of pencils means I eventually have to erase the pencils, which if I ink over white-out causes them to smear. Along with the fading that ink tends to suffer from with heavy erasing as I swear by using Microns and other disposable fine-line pens. I've tried brushes and nibs and much like how I feel about painting, it's just not for me. And yes, I've tried Rapidiographs as well, but they are far too expensive and a nightmare to clean. I digress. Anyhow, all of these 'ugly inks' as I refer to them, resulted in piles upon piles of discarded inks around my desk. At my old day job, when we had to move our offices after I had been there for 2 years I realized I had accumulated at least a 1.5" thick stack of inks that I had completely forgotten about, much to the horror of my coworkers who were all familiar with my work. So yeah, I eventually started to realize that I'm kinda sitting on some potential money here and have been trying to find ways to polish up my original inks to the point where my OCD'd ass would feel comfortable selling them.

Vellum is basically a heavy grade tracing paper some comic artists choose to ink on.
A lot of tattoo artists and draftsmen also use it, which are two other types of artists I
have been heavily influenced by.

 I remembered an inking method we were taught back in the heydays of my time at Kubert School, being a vellum overlay taped to your pencils that you can ink on without worry of damaging the pencils underneath. I had messed with it a little at Kubert School, but admittedly my inking has been under arrested development due to a rather possessive former friend who insisted on inking my work all through Kuberts and the years following, so it wasn't my strong suit for a long time. Anytime I did ink my own work, the emotional blackmail thrown at me would put even the most passive-aggressive Catholic mother to shame. Fortunately I kicked this so-called friend to the curb a few years ago and have been trying to play catch-up now that I'm free to pursue my art without worrying about those latched onto my coat-tails. So I gave vellum a shot earlier this year and have fallen madly in love with it, but now I had all of these curled up inks on pieces of vellum sitting around my studio. It was also around this time I was prepping for HeroesCon in NC back in June, and wanted to start drawing commissions at my table and needed a method that would allow me to keep a high standard of work without the need for a computer or digital assistance. If you've already read my HeroesCon recap, you'll know that drawing at my table didn't work out for me so well. I was able to do pretty well with post-convention commissions instead. And plan to do more commissions this way before/after shows in the future. Anyways, so I wanted to have my vellum inks available for purchase as original pieces in themselves outside of my digital color versions I save for the internet and prints. I had noticed there's a cool trend with a lot of convention sketches in recent years where artists will use a set of cool and warm grey markers to fake out colors, to really awesome effects. Adam Hughes is one that comes to mind who does this. And then also there's the sketches of the LA Chapter of Drink and Draw Social Club, which features artists drawing on tinted boards, allowing for white highlights from white-out and gel pens to really pop. These two influences, along with my obsession with the aesthetics of old school animation gave me the bright idea to tone my vellum inks on the opposite side with markers and white-out (though I started moving to paint), resulting in an original one of a kind piece of artwork that matches the digital version.

Original inks, toned with markers and white-out on vellum.
This will be the actual piece in the show.

So yeah, whew! Hopefully with this newly-discovered method of doing things I can *finally* start breaking into more gallery scenes and getting substantially more buck for my bang, as it were. Since all original inks cost me to produce is time, which I feel justifies a higher price tag than just sending stuff off to a print shop. Which helps me financially justify working freelance and keeps me out of yet another soul-sucking day job. So keep an eye out for my next commission deal, I plan on doing more pieces along these lines as well as more art shows in the near future!  

Post-Heroescon commissions.
Keep an eye out on my social media feeds for my next commission offering!

A Commission Experiment!

SO MUCH ART IN THIS ENTRY!
SO MUCH!!

So with Heroes over, my credit card is getting wrung out for all that it's worth. As a result, I did something I should have done BEFORE the show and offered single inked and greytoned marker character sketches (with no bg) for $75 a pop. That are on vellum, like the rather popular little Batgirl pic I did here.

That specific piece went for $200 on auction this Sat at Heroes. So yeah, not a bad deal. I only recently started selling my originals, as they are starting to take up too much room in my studio, so these are to be pretty rare, frameable pieces that whoever bought will have the one true, original copy of. To make toning easier with the markers, as they are done by hand- I also am coloring said commissions digitally in the more 'traditional' Paigey-style as I need to do a practice run to map out where my shadows are going to hit. So yay!
The catch: For the time being, I only had 5 slots open for this offer, which was announced over my Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts. Also, I was only doing fictional characters, not portraits. So no pics of people's wives, girlfriends, kids, etc. Sorry but too many egos get wrapped up in those kind of pieces and it infringes on my process. So revisions and progress shots ain't happening. You get what I'll give you, but if you're a fan of mine and pick a character that plays to my artistic strengths (boobs are aways a good start ~__^ ) I assure you you'll like what you get. Not saying I'll never do portraits of real people ever again, but that's not for this offer. I wanted to get these done quick and dirty. 
The experiment was a rousing success, with all five character slots being scooped up and payed for (the MOST important part!) in less than a week. 
I definitely want to do this again- it was A LOT of fun and I got a chance to put my own twist on some characters I wouldn't have otherwise thought to draw on my own. I'm steadily trying to build that trust/reputation with my artwork that if you give me something to draw, I will rock the shit out of it.

So anyways, onto all the awesome commissions everyone got!!

Big Barda
"I'm not so bad. A little rough, maybe --
but once you get to know me --
I can be a real pussycat."

Lady Death
"Queen of all that's dead or dying, baby..."

Columbia, from Rocky Horror Picture Show
"It was great when it all began, I was a regular Frankie fan..."

Storm
"The elements marshal their infinite might at my beckoning!
Power seethes in the roiling clouds! Now, at my command -- STRIKE!"

A Baltimore Pinup Girl
“I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore.
You can look far and wide, but you'll never discover a stranger
city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric
in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas
in Baltimore, and decided to stay.” 
-John Waters

And an extra bonus piece!!

Baltimore icons
Mister Boh of National Bohemian Beer
and the UTZ Potato Chip Girl
"Oh Boy!"

I've got a couple more Baltimore-centric ideas for pinups- my friends and fans in Baltimore (my hometown) are VERY kind to me and I always like to do a little extra for them. Think I may pump those out before Baltimore Comic Con in September and see if I can get some postcard sets made. Which I will certainly also post to etsy. We'll see what my schedule looks like, as I have A LOT on my plate for the next couple months.

Engagement Photos with Atomic Cheesecake Studios!

As you may or may not know, I am due to be getting hitched to my longtime boyfriend Phil 'Ballsy' Balsman in Las Vegas by an Elvis impersonator on Dia de los Muertos, which is November 2nd. Less than two months away. @__@;;

I've started calling it: WEDD-AGEDDON.

And as is tradition, the couple has to take some professionally shot engagement pictures together to use for the wedding announcements and the like and to give an idea of what kind of couple they are to the family and friends and shit. So Phil came up with the awesome idea of using my friend Stacey Barich, of Atomic Cheesecake Studios in my hometown of Baltimore, Md. I've done pinup shoots with Stacey before and it's always a treat to get shot by her. I've even brought groups of girlfriends from NYC down to get their cheeky shots taken and after seeing the amazing and hilarious engagement shoot she did for my friend Kevin and Ida Slaughter we *knew* Stacey was the perfect fit.

Once we knew we wanted Stacey to take our pictures, I figured out the what kinds of themes would best work with us as a couple. I knew I wanted 3 different shoots, one a bright and sunny picnic type scene that would be appropriate for the family and subsequent 'Thank You' cards after our engagement parties, one that was swank with Phil wearing a fez and incorporating Stacey's giant awesome pimp chair for the actual wedding invitation and the final being completely selfish and goofy of us as Frankenstein's monster and his Bride.

This shoot started out G-rated enough, as we were feeding each other hamburgers and hot dogs with intertwined arms, aka 'Long Island Wedding'-style.

But then it started slipping into the gutter as I started salaciously mustarding Phil's hotdog.

We couldn't help ourselves. We're just filthy-minded individuals.

Classy. We used this one for our actual wedding invitations.

I really like my smile in this one, it's super genuine. Also: Phil's EPIC FEZ!!! (Which is actually Stacey's awesome husband Frank's fez. As is the super cool cocktail jacket that we're actually gonna borrow for the wedding!)

I ADORE Phil's face here. You can really see the love and the 'OMG I'm actually marrying this crazy broad!' Or it might be him thinking 'Please don't break the nice lady's chair, honey.'

With the crazy makeup involved, we did these last. Frank did Phil's makeup and it looks AMAZING.

This was also the shoot Phil was the most into. He got to really cut loose and be himself.

My face in this pic is also one of my most favorite pictures of myself ever. I look like I drew me.

So yeah! If you're in the Maryland area and you wanna have an awesome time getting your pictures done, you should schedule an appointment with Stacey!!

Interview from MoCCA Fest '11!

I just recently came across this very candid video interview I did at MoCCA Fest this year, by Alrick Collins, aka REDesign Qreative. I go on about Baltimore, Tex Avery, Ernesto Cabral and anatomy.

Which if you peep the viddy at :39, you can get a pretty good gander at some my own anatomy as well. ::hurr hurr hurr::



What I love is you can totally over-hear my table mate Jared telling his friend next to us about how a large percentage of people coming by to see my table are either bright-eyed girls or dirty old men.

You can see my full con report for MoCCA Fest 2011 here!

Next week! Dr Sketchy's Artstar session in Baltimore!

Hey all! Just letting you know if you're in the Baltimore area- I'll be modeling for Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School on Monday May 9th! Starts at 7pm but you might wanna get there a little earlier to get a good seat! Gonna be wearing some of my con costumes and they will be merch for sale! Check out the flyer!



From the FB invite:

"Please join us at our next night of drawing, drinking, and dames at the Windup Space on May 9, when we'll have a special Art Star session featuring illustrator Paige Pumphrey, aka Paigey!

Baltimore-bred, Brooklyn-based Paigey is a rockabilly sweetheart who specializes in comic-inspired pinups. Her girls are cherubic and cheeky and every smile is packed with personality! Is it life imitating art or art imitating life?

As always, doors open at 6 and drawing starts at 7--and seriously, show up early to get a good seat. We'll have crazy drawing contests with prizes from Atomic Books, Artist & Craftsman Supply, and Baby Tattoo Books.

$8 at the door, and you must be 18+ to attend, and 21+ to drink. No photography or paints, please.

(Flyer by Paigey! Check out more of her work at http://theartofpaigey.blogspot.com/)

Full details and FAQs at http://drsketchysbaltimore.wordpress.com/"

Oh Internet Fame, you are a strange mistress indeed.

I consider myself a pretty with-it chick. I'd even daresay Internet Savvy. But I just don't really get Tumblr. Or maybe I just have too much other shit going on. Either way, one of my friends told me I was on some rather popular Tumblr called "Look at This Frakking Geekster", which is a play off "Look at This Fucking Hipster", which living in the hipster stronghold of Williamsburg, Brooklyn I am ALL TOO familiar with. Anywho, so LaTFG had posted a picture of me in my Wonder Woman costume from Baltimore Comic Con last August. You can read my recap from the weekend here. It's been re-posted and noted and all sorts of stuff on various blogs, many in support of curvy chicks (yay!). I don't understand it, but it's neat to read all these nice things people have been saying about me and my outfit. Especially since in my humble opinion, it's not the best picture of me. But hey, whatevs.

Really my only gripe is that I can't really get in on some of that traffic. Or can I???



Click the pic to be taken to Look at This Frakking Geekster

In other news, my team-up with my friend Ida's company Bitchcraft Apparel has yielded some awesome results, including the first round of lipstick cases which are now available in Baltimore boutiques, including Novelty Haus and 9th Life!


Novelty Haus




9th Life



If you're in Baltimore area, pop on by these awesome stores and check out their wares!!

Dr. Sketchy's presents: The Factory!

So on Saturday 11/13 Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School had a special blowout session at the Brooklyn speakeasy The Red Lotus Room that was themed after Andy Warhol's Factory.


My inspiration for the night

NYC BFF Christy and I, always eager to dress up cute, attended as Warhol print versions of Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. My surrogate little brother and tattooist Paul even came up from Maryland with his girlfriend Chelsea just for the party. Good times were had by all!


Liz and Marilyn scoping out the scene


After a couple drinks channeling Norma Jean got a little too easy...






With my lil brudder Paul

With the rest of the Sketchy's crew

Gearing up for King Con Brooklyn!!!

Check it out! MY NAME's on the poster!!! Sweeet!!!

So this upcoming weekend is my final convention appearance for the year- King Con Brooklyn on Saturday November 6th and Sunday November 7th at the Brooklyn Lyceum!

Saturday I will have my usual Paigey merch for sale at my table- including prints, artbooks, buttons, magnets, toys and jewelry.

Sunday however, is actually the first time I will have direct involvement in events for a convention-

3:30pm: DR. SKETCHY'S ANTI-ART SCHOOL KING CON EDITION (bring your own drawing supplies): Dr. Sketchy's is what happens when Cabaret meets Art School. Artists draw glamorous underground performers and compete for prizes. In our KingCon special edition, pinup artist Paige Pumphrey poses as a MiniComics Showgirl, with Syd Bernstein hosting.

VERY EXCITED! Been going to Dr. Sketchy's for about 2 years now and I am beyond honored that I get to be counted amongst the plethora of gorgeous women who've modeled for Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School over the years! I've had a little experience as a life drawing model before and know it is VERY HARD WORK, so I hope to do it justice!

6:30pm: HIPS, LIPS, & PENCIL TIPS: The Sexual Female as Feminist Focal Point a conversation with female artists Paige Pumphrey, Laura Lee Gullidge, Jennifer Hayden; moderated by writer Rachel Kramer Bussel.

THIS SHOULD BE FUN!! I've never taken part in a panel and speaking in front of alot of people makes me nervous, and I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be playing the Devil's Advocate on the whole idea of the sexualization of women so if anything maybe I'll just keep my showgirl costume from Sketchy's on and fully embrace my role.

You can see the rest of the schedule here!

Aftermath: New York Comic Con 2010

Holy crap what an INSANE weekend!! So insane that it took an extra week of me recovering before I could even think about updating my blog here with any sort of con report. Get ready for some TL;DR action!!!



So late, late Thursday night after the whole 'meeting my childhood hero Pee-Wee Herman'-thing happened, my BFF Fenny came up from Washington DC to join me in convention exploits for the weekend, resulting in about 4 1/2 hours sleep as we got up for the convention Friday morning at 7:30am to hopefully arrive at 9:30-10 for our set up/opening table shift for Girls Drawin Girls, which so did not happen (we got there more like 11-12). So Fenny and I after we got our insane pin-up girls costumes on trekked to the Javits Center with 2 stuffed suitcases of GDG merch and after looking for our table, found this:



So our space, which was supposed to be a 6x6 booth with a 6' table and 2 chairs looked more like where they put the trash cans. Like it was literally as big as a bathroom stall. And I being the first to arrive with Fenny, and either of us having no idea what the hell was going on, and I being convinced for sure NYCC REALLY hates me, resulted in me having a full tilt fit of crying. Thank god GDG founder/President Melody Severns was on her way, since I didn't have a clue as to who to talk to to alleviate our situation. It literally looked like we had been Punk'd.


Me, post fit of crying.

Fortunately Melody had the proper contact info and information and wasn't afraid to pull her bitch card to get shit done around the con. One of the options the floor managers had for us was moving the table altogether, but with a completely sold out convention plus having ordered a thousand postcards with our booth number on them, unless that spot was awesome we weren't gonna move. Especially since the only options it seemed right off the bat for moving to was the Anime Festival floor, which was in the basement. Which was not an option, we had a decent space and we weren't going to give it up for something even worse. So after realizing that the reason why the size of our booth had shrunk was because of the whiny, over-weight middle-aged men on either side of us who didn't seem to realize 6 foot wide booth plus 6 foot wide table equals no extra space for them to waddle in and out of, so that extra foot of they commandeered on either side of their tables to get in and out of is actually encroaching on our footage. And once we reclaimed that space you couldn't hear the END of their incessant whining about fire hazards and how they're supposed to get out. Ugh. So once we got the booth the correct size (with the help of some teamsters we batted our eyes at) and got ahold of our table and chairs over the span of 3 hours that morning, we were set up and I started my booth babely duties while Fenny got her cigarette tray on and walked the floor with promotional items.




So after we got everything set up and started getting into the groove of selling, one of the Reed Expo floor managers who was really going above and beyond helping us out came by to check up on us and told us that there was a 10x10 corner booth in the next aisle that was a last-minute cancellation and if we wanted to move there. And wow- before we can even give her an answer- dude next to us interjects with a condescending 'Well, if YOU GIRLS don't wanna move because of all those postcards- *I* can move there instead.' Like, yeah- really. To which Melody asks the floor manager- but you're offering the table to US, right? Floor manger nods. Melody- let's go. But yeah, really- how much of a gaggle of idiots do you think we are, dude? Ugh.
So we move to the new space, which is AWESOME and they even throw in another 6 foot table to cap off the L shape to the booth at no extra charge. It is glorious, the amount of cross traffic from the two aisles converging results in us being consistently busy all weekend. Even when we were still setting up we were swarmed.




So with the stressful morning behind us, and our relief shift of Daisy and her husband finishing pricing and setup, Fenny, Melody and I hit the super-nice, super not crowded at the time Lucky Strike bowling lanes up the street for a good solid 3 hours of drinking alcoholic Arnold Palmers and talking about boys.




Afterwards Fenny and I departed for dinner then headed home where we got to work on finishing up our costumes for Saturday.



Thankfully I had a closing shift at the table Saturday, so I could sleep in a bit and relax before the barrage of people that awaited me at the con. We didn't actually arrive til about 1 and took our costumes in trash bags so we could change in one of the bathrooms at the show. We got quite some interesting looks from the overcrowded ladies room as we attached feather bustles, applied flash tape to our boobs and laced ourselves in corsets.






The cigarette girl costumes were definitely a hit, alot of people stopped us to get pictures taken and get one of our postcards and buttons. I seriously can't wait til the next time I get to wear these costumes, they were so much fun to wear.

We actually got some inquiries from other companies on our cigarette girl promo idea who showed interest in hiring us to represent them at other conventions. Hopefully that'll pan out, cause that would be soooo sweet!

We were also interviewed by my friend Tameeka for her pop culture blog Tameeka Time- I was a bit overwhemed by the con and exhausted at the time so I don't have too much to say. Fenny however totally rocked it.






With my pal and fellow GDG member, Maria Danalakis- check out her work!


Even though Saturday is usually the 'big party night' at the con, the sheer exhaustion I felt from way too much interaction along with spending a little too much dinero at Lucky Strikes lanes on Friday had me wanting to head home after the show. Even Fenny went out to party, I just gave her my spare keys and let her have run of the city. From what I remember I changed into my pj's, ordered Thai food (Drunken Noodle- my fave!) and watched The Losers with my boyfriend.

Sunday morning Fenny actually left early, so I donned my Wonder Woman costume and went to the con with Phil later that afternoon. And how funny- one of the first pics taken as I came into the convention ends up being for UGO.com's NYCC 2010: Babes of Comic-Con photo spread.



From the rest of the day:





The Wonder Woman costume was extremely well-recieved! Alot of people even said it was the best WW costume they had seen all weekend and gave me praise for the old school sensibilities and how classy it was. It's really comfy and I love wearing it as well- it's got such a great amount of personalization to it since it's made from things I found in my closet. The only things I had to do were add the stars and get some yellow nylon rope from the hardware store.

So with NYCC over with for another year it looks like the only con standing between me and 2011 is King Con Brooklyn in about 3 weeks, which I will be a guest at and looks like I will be speaking at my first ever panel for, about the Sexualization of Women in Comics. Which for some reason I feel I'm going to be playing the Devil's Advocate for.

Also thanks to Champion Eye Media for usage of his con pics- be sure to check out his whole gallery on his website.