November 2012- Lil Bub and lil' bags

Hey! Sorry I haven't updated in a while! Been busy this past month with some varying projects, Thanksgiving, lettering away at some manga, attempting to regularly go to the gym and trying to actually be social n' stuff. Which I know, weird...

Selfie in the bathroom of Double Down Saloon

I also got to meet a CELEBRITY this month!! 

Being internet cat sensation and most amazing creature on the planet-
Lil' Bub!

There was a meet n' greet to a roomful of cooing girls (myself included) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the BARC (Brooklyn Animal Rescue Center) where Lil Bub was selling 'kisses' for a dollar and 30% of all sales of Bub merch went to the center.  So I bought a tshirt and tote and got to hold her tiny polydactyl paw. It was magical!

As for projects I am working on lately, I just recently completed some new designs for my best friend Fenny's design house Little Asian Sweatshop, and we've got some crazy stuff planned! We've finally started figuring out how to utilize the Spoonflower website- which if you haven't heard about, is a really cool printer of direct-to-garment REAMS OF FABRIC.

Luchadora Fabric!
Drawn by me, designed by Maria Danalakis!

Little Asian Sweatshop and I have BIG PLANS for 2013, including Paigey-designed bags and even apparel further down the road. We're concentrating first on a line of make-up/pencil/stash bags with matching liners and zippers.

Little Asian Sweatshop already has Luchadora makeup/pencil bags in stock
on her etsy site!!

And we're already taking the bag design a step further with art that I am composing with the intention of being on the bag from the start, including these tattooed sailor mermaids:

Be sure to keep an eye out for this and future bag releases!!

I have a lot more bag designs planned, and also hope to get some of my other artist friends on board with their own via LAS once we've perfected the method for creating these. Then we plan to move on to purses, totes and eventually even apparel including dresses and tops! Very exciting!

Shiiiirts!! Check it out!

Check it out!! I've got a limited run of my 'Oh Boy!' Boh & UTZ shirts for sale at my etsy store!

ORDER HERE!!!

Be sure to pay attention to the size listings when ordering- I only have a very limited run of these right now.

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!

Getting back in my groove!

Now that all the wedding craziness is over I can get back to focusing on my artwork and working fulltime freelance from home! For practice I did two new pinups!

This cute lil' sailor girl, titled 'First Mate' I did as an exploration of different coloring techniques, including a limited palette (there's only 7 colors which is VERY limited for me!) and halftone shading. I might try and see about getting her printed as a tshirt somewhere, since now that I am liberated from my old dayjob of designing tshirts I can actually explore techniques I learned there at my own pace and on my own artwork.

This next piece I did is a portrait of one of my favorite characters from all time, Angel from Rock & Rule. This actually started out as a doodle in a sketchbook from about 2 years ago that I came across last week and decided to breathe new life into. For me coming up with the bare concept of a piece is the hardest part, which I why I so rarely just sketch. I have to have some sort of idea already in my head. But yeah, I lucked out with this little piece where I was able to fix it up and take it to finishes. Which is quite a feat for me with any Rock & Rule fanart as that movie's art style is what I ultimately want my own art to be like and the challenge was to draw the characters without the piece being derivative. I think I did pretty ok, it's like a weird marriage of both my and R&R's styles.

In non-drawing creativity I've been flexing my design muscles as the unofficial Art Director and VP of Marketing for my BFF's DIY company Little Asian Sweatshop, designing flowers and pimping her etsy store out to the masses. My husband Phil is also revamping her whole logo/branding scheme and it looks frigging adorable.

Some of the new hair flower designs I've made are ON SALE NOW!

Click the links to be taken to the etsy listing!

Black and White Chevron Geometric Pattern Mod Rose Hair Flower Fascinator

Black and White Mod Rose Hair Flower Fascinator

Burgundy Ombre Damask Pattern Rose Hair Flower Fascinator

And my personal favorite:

Baltimore Maryland Crab Mini Hair Flower Fascinator

(which is also available as a boutonnière!)

I have lots more flower designs in the works for Little Asian Sweatshop, some pretty high concept! Be sure to bookmark the store and check back on the regular!

Aftermath: NYC Psychobilly Luau 2011

Holeeeey crap. What a crazy, fun, unexpectedly successful weekend!!

I vended the 5th Annual Psychobilly Luau this past weekend, which is the largest psychobilly get-together on the east coast.


My illuminated table at Public Assembly on Friday!
With awesome giant banner action!

What is psychobilly, you ask? From Wikipedia:
"Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly. Psychobilly is often characterized by lyrical references to science fiction, horror and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other topics generally considered taboo, though often presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is often played with an upright double bass instead of the electric bass more common in modern rock music. Psychobilly gained underground popularity in Europe beginning in the early 1980s, but remained largely unknown in the United States until the late 1990s. Since then the advent of several notable psychobilly bands has led to its mainstream popularity and attracted international attention to the genre."



I attended both Friday July 22nd and Saturday July 23rd of the event, at Public Assembly and The Bell House, both in Brooklyn respectively. I never did an even like this, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I had had a bad run of vending at street fairs and flea markets and really wanted to to expand my fan base but wasn't sure exactly what types of events would welcome work such as mine. Then my friend Laura Rebel-Angel get ahold of me about vending the Psychobilly Luau this year, which I had seen posters for in previous years but never had a chance to get out to. I'm always bad at going to shows like these just as a spectator. I don't get out much and when I do and it's a scene I admire but am greatly intimidated by and don't have much personal exposure to I often find myself awkwardly hanging out on the sidelines with friends who have no idea what's going on that I drag with me. So at least having a table set up people can come to me, see what I'm all about and I get this illusion of being involved even though I'm actually a dorky shut-in. Plus it gives me the opportunity to make a little extra scratch on the side. ;)


Meredith and I looove photobooths!!

So along with Meredith, my longtime pal from Maryland up for the weekend as my trusty helper I set up shop Friday evening at Public Assembly in Williamsburg to an overwhelmingly awesome crowd of folks who were super in to what I had to offer. My best friend Fenny even sent up some of the custom-made paper hair flowers she creates for her Little Asian Sweatshop store on etsy to sell for her. Her most popular being roses she crafts from playing cards, like the one pictured below, which were a HIT! Out of the 20 she sent me I have 2 left! Craziness! If you wanna get one for yourself head on over to her etsy store and check out all her goodies!


My BFF Fenny's Sweatshop Flowers-
check them out in her etsy store

I also had my iPhone Square card reader for the show, which I still had yet to properly use (as most convention centers are lacking in phone signals). I must say the ability to read credit cards really put my vending success at the Luau on par with some of my best comic convention table experiences! I really hope I'm able to get some wifi at Baltimore Comic Con coming up, because getting that extra business would be beyond awesome, as people are apt to spend more with a credit card as we've been somewhat conditioned to think of it as not 'real' money.


New *rhinestoned* Paigey jewelry
in the works!

I have been playing around with 'fancier' renditions of my jewelry, as I am fascinated with all things sparkly- especially rhinestones. I blame burlesque. So I got these super cute cameo frames that I put my artwork in, but I felt they needed a bit of extra oomph and working my dayjob in the Fashion District I'm constantly passing all these stores with excellent rhinestones and beadwork. So I eventually learned that one way to attach them to pieces is by these fun little things called headpins, and thus A NEW SUB-OBSESSION IS BORN. So now I'm concocting a separate 'line' of Paigey jewelry that's gonna be all fancy-schmancy with sparkles n' stuff. I'll be adding these new pieces to my etsy store in the coming month and you can also see them up close and personal once Baltimore Comic Con rolls around at my Artist Alley table .


Awesome setup at The Bell House on Saturday!
Now if they could only get that AC working...


*Giant* table spread at The Bell House on Saturday!


More rhinestone Paigey jewelry! Look for it at my table at Baltimore Comic Con
and to go up on my etsy store soon!!


Sasquatch and the Sick-A-Billies!!

I'm definitely going to be back next year to vend for the show, it was a whopping success and I'm already talking to Fenny about her coming up to vend as well with MORE hairflowers and even more goodies that's she and I will be creating between now and then.

Wanna see more pics of the event?
Papermag has a great photo essay right here and Sailor Jerry (one of the sponsors) has some great coverage of Saturday on their Facebook page!

Added some new stuff to my Etsy store!

Been keeping myself busy crafting the night away and added some new stuff to my etsy store!



Including stuff like my 'Greatest Hits' bracelet, with 8 of my favorite pinup girls on it! It's like a wearable Paigey portfolio!



If you're a fan but live too far away to come see me at events like comic cons and burlesque shows my etsy store is the *perfect* place to pick up some awesome Paigey merch! I always throw in extra goodies like buttons and stickers with every order!

Her Royal Craftiness!!

So with my self-imposed commission blackout on the horizon, I've started playing around with some of the stuff I want to experiment with. One of the things I wanna work on is alot of new merch ideas for my tables at comic conventions! My 'NYC BFF' Christy gave some awesome ideas and links to places for really cool jewelry supplies.

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on with that:



There's rings, necklaces, charms for earrings and zipper pulls, magnets, brooches and little tin stash boxes!



I'm still figuring out the process of making everything, but I'm super excited about the rings and stash boxes!! I hope to have a ton made for MoCCA and Heroes Con coming up!

I'm also working on another project where I'm taking these little wooden coffin boxes and I'm going to paint them black, decoupage some artwork on them, add embellishments like beadwork and glue in some red velvet on the inside.



I'm drawing some vampire girls special just for this project!





A mock-up to check the sizing- looking good so far! I'm also going to add artwork to the sides as well!



Finished art!!



Next one I'm doing is a Lady Blacula!



Not sure exactly how much I'm going to charge for these yet. I need to make the first one and judge on that how big of a pain in my ass they are to make and price them accordingly.

Paigey! at the Oscars gift lounge

Hey! Remember when I sent all those Space Girl necklaces to Home of the Sampler to be put in Oscars gift bags? Well, the Oscars are done and I've got shots of people with my stuff!

Angelica Zambrana, an actress in Precious



Sara Underwood, Playmate of the Year 2007



You can see the rest of the shots here.

We'll see if anything comes of it. Maybe Tara Reid will get snapped by TMZ in my Spacegirl necklace. One can hope.

If you wanna snag a Spacegirl necklace of your own, or any other Paigey products- check out my etsy store!

Etsy store is back in action!

Hey all! Just want to drop a note that my etsy store has reopened and I'm planning on updating with new product all this month. This is your only chance to get some rare one-of-a-kind Paigey original marker art dating back as far as 2003! Check it out!

Space girl necklaces at the Oscars and the "B" in BK flyer!

So I have some pretty big news- my Spacegirl necklaces are going to be in a sampler bag for the OSCARS! Yeah, like the statue! I hope they get noticed/checked out y some influential peeps, or at least people who have an interest in the art come to my blog and see everything else I do. Eeee! If you're a crafty-type person I highly suggest checking out The Sampler- it's a company that makes monthly sampler packages for blogs, boutiques, magazines and lovers of DIY/craft culture to subscribe to, and they also make bags for events like the Golden Globes, the Oscars and the AMA's. It's a great way to get your product out there if you're looking to expand your customer base. I plan on sending in 95 of them, so far I have 30 of them in various stages of completion.



Once I get them all sent out I'm going into overdrive with getting my etsy store up and running. I know, I've been saying that for awhile but THIS TIME I MEAN IT! I really do.

Also! I finally finished my flyer for The "B" in BK fashion doll expo in Brooklyn, NY. Put on by the same swell folks who do King Con Brooklyn, "B" in BK will feature 60+ vendors of fashion dolls, photo exhibition of the Disco World of Darci, a 25th birthday celebration for Jem and the Holograms and a bunch of other fun happenings. I'll be there signing copies of my flyer, and will hopefully have some sort of show-specific pin-up for sale by the time it rolls around. I'm gunning for a Jem/Misfits piece.