Roller Girls and X-Men

Last weekend Fenny of Little Asian Sweatshop and I officially started our 2012 Season of selling with our first vending event of the year: The Charm City Roller Girls Double Header Bout in my hometown of Baltimore! It was a rousing success and it was great to see some of my Maryland friends at the show! This was also another show where we were able to accept credit cards via our Square readers- it makes a HUGE difference in sales. People are more likely to buy higher ticketed/multiple items if they don't have to part with their cash. Especially at stuff like this where there's other businesses like food stands that prefer cash.

Speaking of which- I also hadn't been to a CCRG bout in about 3 years- and as someone who went to their inaugural bout back in 2005(?) I'm super proud to see how far they've come! No more roller rink bouts! It was at night in an arena! And there were FOOD stands! With PIT BEEF AND BRATS!! :d YUM! And beer! And a guy selling gourmet marshmallows! Crazy! So I'm super proud of my home league of roller girls! And what an awesome bout to watch as well!

Fenny and our table (with sparkle table cloth upgrade)!
Right in the main foyer as you walked in-
we could even watch the whole bout from our seats!

Me! Yay!

The spread! I forgot my display fixtures so I
couldn't put out as many necklaces as I would have liked.
We still had a great-looking table regardless.

We also did specially-designed Little Asian Sweatshop flowers for the four CCRG teams: 

Night Terrors flower! Royal blue & black!

Mobtown Mod's target flower!

Speed Regime camo!

Junkyard Dolls hot pink zebra print!

Also! I dunno if you saw my last entry (see below), but I've started drawing for myself a little bit to allow some no-pressure 'practice time' between commissions ands major assignments so my skills stay sharp. So I've been drawing these X-Men redesigns of basically what the team members would look like if I was handed the title and told to go to town and remake the comic with my own little spin on the characters. Which if we TRULY want to indulge in the fantasy of for a second- I would co-write with one of my favorite comic writers ever, the awesome, awesome Adam Warren. ::wistful sigh:: GOD THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

I already drew Rogue and Dazzler, who had one of my favorite rivalries in the 80's over who would end up 'dating' Longshot. (The Wolvie/Cyclops over Jean drama is pretty damn played, IMHO.) But anyways! Here's the designs for both Jean Grey and Gambit.

Jean Grey!
“You and I are quits now, X-men. Our paths will cross no more. My destiny lies in the stars.”
For Jean I wanted her to be what I envision to be like the hottest redheaded sexpot ever (seriously, like who DOESN'T want to do her in the X-Universe?), which I concocted as a combination of Dolly Read in Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, Daphne from Scooby Doo and a pinch of Marsha Brady. I also loved all her 60's outfits and I've been interested in the Mod style for a bit. I even worked in a subtle 'X' pattern on the dress.A lot of folks say she could easily be Mary Jane from Spider-Man, which while true- I'd actually make MJ taller, skinnier and her hair darker/flatter. More high fashion model-y. 

Gambit!
“Everyone can relax! Gambit has returned...”
I have a confession: I cannot STAND Gambit. He's just a gimmicky douchebag who's supposed to come off as this slick ladies man but it really just comes off as sleazy. Like you'd contract VD standing within 3 feet of him. I *tried* making Gambit cool and psychobilly, which I think would lend itself to the card suit theme I tried working into his look. It's hard to see but I have card suits on one set of knuckles and  'NOLA' on the other. If I had cared more I would have had a jacket/shirtless version that shows all his tattoos, cuz I imagine him covered with lots of old school tats having themes like playing cards, NOLA, being a thief/criminal, etc. Gambit's basically that skuzzily attractive guy who never bothered working on a personality because he got away with being so gosh darn handsome all the time. But if you stand within 3 feet of him you run the risk of contracting some form of VD. So yeah. 

I'm going to open up a gallery on the top menu of the blog here soon for all of these redesigns so you can see them together. I've been getting some nice little bits of exposure for these on Tumblr and the like thanks to blogs like Fashion Tips From Comic Strips, which focuses on the fashion found in the comic world. One of my faves, always cool stuff on there! Highly suggest it!

Next up I'm gonna try and draw up Cyclops, whom I have a pretty fun idea for (think 60s Michael Caine).

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.

Plugging Away...

Hi everybody! Not too much to report. I've had 2 weeks in between finishing the lettering of Airgear #24 and starting Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex #3 to focus on some personal projects and long overdue commissions. Here's a couple peeks into what I've been up to:

Gotta love the roller derby commissions!

Inking a portrait for tattoo artist Cyn Rudzis,
who did my Wonder Woman tattoo.

My Christmas present from beloved husband Ballsy also came in- a new iMac since my old one of 6+ years was starting to choke up on me. So nowww I have BOTH of them hooked up and ready to go- and it's looking to be a pretty sweet little set-up. My old iMac (on the right, below) will be used for internets, music and movies; while my new silver iMac will do all of my graphics work, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Beloved husband even got this cool app called Teleport, which allows you to control both computers with one mouse and keyboard. It even makes a cool 'fwoosh!' noise when you go in between screens.

Ground control to Major Pum...

I'm also getting heavily back into my merch and crafting game. Now living the freelance lifestyle my social calendar is at the mercy of an irregular ebb and flow of fundage so I am looking to make as much money as possible at the events I'm planning to attend this year. (Side note: I have now added a calendar of what events I'm actually attending this year to the side bar of the blog.) Plus I just *love* making things. It relaxes me and fills me with a sense of pride. ^__^ So yeah, the first event of the year I'll be selling at is the March 10th bout for Charm City Roller Girls at DuBurns Arena in Baltimore. I'm totally catering my merch to the audience and trying to come up with ideas for stuff that will tie in with the themes for the event. Yay sales. When it's stuff I actually CARE about and can stand behind, I love being a salesperson.

Making magnets of the CCRG 'mascots' Ballsy
designed for his bout poster a few years back

I've also been churning out hair flower designs for Little Asian Sweatshop so quickly that poor Fenny can barely keep up! Here's a few she cranked out this week!

Versatile red bandana flower!
Great for bikers, rockabillies or gangstas!
(See? VERSATILE!)

For all you Anglophiles out there:
The Union Jack flower!

And the 'crown jewel' of LAS-

(at least for now...)

Fenny and I have broken NEW GROUND in hair flower technology!
For all you Portal fans, the glowing
GLaDOS personality core flower! 

Be sure to visit the Little Asian Sweatshop and check out all the cool stuff we've got on the way!