Pearly Whites Sketch dump- July 2014

Had some time to myself during a weekend visit to my parent's house in Maryland and spent a good chunk of my time out on the back porch sketching and writing for my eventual comic, Pearly Whites. 

It's coming along. I actually closed a few gaps in the progression of the story and even made up a character or two that streamlines a very complicated origin story. The problem with writing a story that's been in my head since I was 15 is that that early on I had so many bad teenaged ideas ingrained into the story that they're simply taken as history. But in reality, I can change whatever I want and no one other than me will really know the difference. I mean some of these characters have been hanging out in my head for over 20 years so I don't necessarily want to un-make my imaginary friends, but for the sake of story sometimes you make sacrifices. I'm pretty proud of how much tighter Pearly Whites is getting though. I think I might actually *finally* have the beginning of the story figured out, which is exciting. It just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. It's like I'm taking a pinch from everything I love and putting it in a mixer and making my own cake of awesomeness.

Art updates! Nov 2013 Edition!

Exciting news! I was accepted into Moon Crisis: A Sailor Moon Tribute Show! It's out in California next summer and I get to display my work alongside some of my contemporary art heroes like Babs Tarr and Megan Lara! I am crazy super excited to take part. Plus I'm hoping some of these galleries in Cali will finally take notice to my work and offer me more opportunities to take part in more pop culture-themed shows (I'm looking at YOU, Gallery 1988...).

SO excited to take part that I'm already sketching the layout for my piece, which is looking to be pretty big. It was suggested I make my piece in the same vein as my Visionary Tattoo Festival poster, which as of right now is (in my humble opinion) my best piece of art ever. So I'm going for a VERY text-heavy gaslight Victorian style that is going to incorporate the WHOLE SAILORMOON THEME SONG... because apparently I hate myself. But I love all of your eyeballs. ::cries::

I've also been sketching some Pearly Whites characters for warm ups in between commissions.

Althea, the suit-loving raconteur.

Althea and Rasheeda. Pearly Whites: already passing the Bechdel Test.

As of yet unnamed demon character. Basically Boris Karloff wearing Max Shreck's suit.

Pearly Whites.

See the full shots of these creeps and scoundrels on my Pearly Whites page.

Logo by Phil Balsman!

This is Amy, one of our heroes.
See the rest of my characters here.

In preparation for actually sitting down and doing my fabled magnum opus comic series Pearly Whites, I'm drawing character studies and other fun stuff. I consider this separate from my usual pinup work, so it's all going in here.

The long-winded 'elevator pitch':

It's best described as almost an east-coast version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but from the monsters perspective. (I'm not even gonna pretend people aren't going to make comparisons.) It could also be considered a superhero team book if the superheroes all didn't wear costumes and have no actual mission to carry out. It's got action, horror, comedy, romance, drama, powers, drugs, fashion and pop culture references out the wazzoo. Alot of the stories and characters come from my 4 years of playing/DMing tabletop dice-and-paper RPG's like Vampire and Shadowrun in high school.

The main story follows our main character Amy, an amnesiac who is of unknown origins. She is haunted by two girls, Suzan and Fiona, who could be either ghosts, figments of her imagination or incorporeal aspects of her own personality. Or all of the above. Or something else entirely. She comes to live in a sort of halfway house for the supernatural called the Monster Lodge, which is occupied by a rotating cast of various werewolves, vampires, demons, witches, Frankensteins, mad scientists, fairies, and ne'er do well's. Many who comes to live at the Monster Lodge are there because they're running from something, which results in several character's pasts eventually catching up with them. Depending on the character, this can result in anything from riotous hijinks across the country (and sometimes across the world) to heartbreaking realizations that can shake the characters to their very cores.

As of right now I've got 16 characters down, a bazillion to go. Look for more designs soon! With the summer weather being absolute shit right now, this is basically all I've been concentrating my free time on. It's like I'm in high school again. I'm proud to say I'm further along to a cohesive plot than I've ever been in the 15+ years these characters have been running around in my head, and I'm taking serious steps to organize my thoughts and get my shit in gear to do my own goddamn comic. Woot.

I added an actual page to my blog up above under the title banner of this very blog where you can see my character designs as they progress. Or just click here. Be sure to check it out every few weeks as I plan on adding more characters and concept drawings and who knows, maybe some comic shorts as I get back into the sequential game.

Aftermath: HeroesCon 2013

Another HeroesCon down in the books!

Little Asian Sweatshop, Maria Danalakis Art, and myself in Artist Alley!

After show drinks on Saturday!

Let it be known that this and Baltimore Comic Con are my two favorite shows of the year. HeroesCon is a fantastic show that is comic and artist focused and always has a fantastic guest list with amazingly friendly fans and attendees and a supportive staff who are ready and able to help you out with whatever it is you need. Heroes is the one show I will go out of my way to attend and is my main 'away' show where I stay at a hotel and actually socialize with fellow con folks after hours. 

OMG it's "Pee-Wee"!

My harlequin-print Jenny dress from Pinup Girl clothing!

Not that there isn't some criticism. This year seemed a transitional one for the show, after the insanity of last year's 30th anniversary show plus having Stan Lee as a guest it seemed the showrunners assumed that the enormous crowds of last year would carry through and had an even BIGGER floorplan than any year previous. What resulted was a GINORMOUS show floor with GIANT aisles that spread out the attendees so thin that it gave the illusion that the show was kinda dead all weekend. Which from the opinions I heard around resulted in a lack of enthusiasm from the fans and exhibitors and a lack of money being made at Artist Alley tables. I know there were large swaths of time where practically no one came by my table and I actually ::gasp:: SAT DOWN. I know, I know- I'm just as disappointed in myself. :\ 

ALSO- and by no fault of Heroes, traveling down this year was a NIGHTMARE. My husband and I will usually make a 2 day journey down to NC from NYC due to the sheer volume of merch I bring with me requiring us to drive. We'll take a Megabus down from NYC to Baltimore and borrow my parent's van, then we pick up Fenny in DC and drive the (what's supposed to be 7 hours) to Charlotte. Which we usually have done on Thursday, but figured we'd do it this year on Friday as that's a dead day anyways for most, and we assumed we'd get there at at 2ish since we were on the road at 7am. Ugh, but constant torrential downpours and traffic jams destroyed any hope for smooth sailing and setup on Friday was left for a hectic final hour of the show that day. And I must admit I got really snippy with people who stopped to talk to me while I was trying to setup.  

"Little Stepford Sweatshop"

My husband Phil "Ballsy" Balsman and I!

All was not lost at Heroes however. While I did financially take a hit this year (hopefully the rest of this year's shows will fare better on my wallet), one of the things that makes the show really worth it at the end is the Dead Dog party for all the professionals/workers/volunteers on Sunday night after the show at the comic shop that throws it, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find. The after party has an awesome spread of tacos, beer and I got some discounted comics- though as always when I actually go into a brick-and-mortar comic shop I get a case of buyer's amnesia and forget EVERYTHING I want to buy. What's super-duper awesome about the afterparty is also that it gives me a chance to mingle and catch up with my contemporaries and I even got some hugs *initiated* by some longtime artistic heroes, which put me on cloud 9. Especially since I'm chained to my table during con hours and rarely get a break to pee let alone go around and talk to people. I also for the third year in a row donated art to the Heroescon Saturday art auction, this year it being the original to my chibi Poison Ivy pinup, which went to a huge fan of the character. Which I'm aways glad to see.

So very, very tired.

Me and my FAVE cosplayer DJ Spider as golden age Batwoman!

Something I did notice however with Heroes regarding my own work is that this being my 6th year tabling I feel like I'm starting to get pigeonholed as the 'pin-up girl'. Which is awesome thing to be known for and I love the genre, but my true passion has always been comics and I feel like there's so much more artistically I can offer. Like drawing guys. And ugly people. And having characters act in a way other than 'Were you just looking at my bum, naughty boy?' So I'm trying to really focus on actually putting out my magnum opus comic Pearly Whites in the next 5 years, which is honestly a VERY generous time frame and it will hopefully be in even less time then that. I already started my final character designs and I've been writing and outlining like crazy trying to streamline 15 years worth of story notes into a cohesive narrative that doesn't suck. Thankfully my BFF Fenny of Little Asian Sweatshop was an English Lit major in college and is helping me out with all the fine tuning and is an AMAZING sounding board for ideas. Look for future blog entries where I'll share some tidbits on the craziness that is Pearly Whites.