The Great Gigeresque Ink Project (part 2)

Following on from the preliminary concept and sketches, to get an idea of the proportions of the tattoo (as Giger's design does not map onto a real human very easily!), I opted to paint a rough sketch on the person who will be getting the tattoo. This turned out to be essential as the proportions in the original meant that instead of extending from foot to hip, it would have reached far up her rib-cage. So, I need to know what proportions to use, and a mock-up is useful so she can see if she actually likes it!

Paint-job done

Does it work when stood up/full-length? I think so...

It's good to relax...

So, we agree that the design works - in the end it needed the thigh section of the original image to be shortened but other than that it is much the same. This is still at an early stage though - the image will have a surrounding 'background' and that's where the real creativity comes in as it'll be my original design. As I intend to draw it full size, it's time to find a nice big sheet of paper... more soon!

The Great Gigeresque Ink Project (part 1)

I was recently asked to design a tattoo - nothing especially unusual about that, except that it's a full-length hip-to-foot piece. It's also in the style of H.R.Giger - you know, the guy who designed Alien (there are lots of tattoos around inspired by his work). The size and intricacy of the piece means it's going to be a lonnnnnnnggggg project (months), especially as I may decide to draw it full size. So, with the eventual-canvas's permission, it feels like something well worth documenting as it progresses.

The core of the design is the microphone stand that Giger designed for Korn frontman Jonathan Davis. You can already see how this might work along the length of someone's leg, albeit with some tweaking to the proportions.

Concept art for the mic stand, full length

Concept art for the mic stand, detail of the top part

Giger's work is known for its intricacy and detail/realism (if 'realism' is the right word for images that are clearly a dark fantasy, but you know what I mean) but that's not a technical challenge as such - it simply takes more time. For me the challenge comes in fitting the design to the person so it looks right - after all, it's going to be there forever, and creating a background that can be blended into the surrounding skin and which will enhance the centrepiece. So far I have a preliminary concept sketch - very scruffy and scribbly, but it's something concrete to work on. Next step - fitting it to the recipient...

The first concept sketch...

So, more soon hopefully, and in the meantime, if you're wondering what 'KooKoo pins' means on the sketch, have a look at this album cover by Giger...

Artists as transducers

One of my recent ink drawings is entitled Terrain II and records a local bus journey over a few miles, the pen acting like a phonographic recording stylus, translating the bumps on the road into lines on the page.

Terrain II, A4 ink on paper

Obviously this isn't a strict or 'pure' record - I've chosen the line spacing and shading to turn the original lines into a visual landscape - but the shapes are derived directly from the movements of the bus/road. Along with Terrain (also a bus journey rendered similarly to this) these were my first forays into anything that could be considered 'land art', and were somewhat inspired by the Uncommon Ground land art exhibition when it came to Southampton City Gallery last year. One of the pieces that intrigued me, though not my 'favourite' and certainly not the most spectacular, was Roger Ackling's Five hour cloud drawing, made by focusing sunlight onto card using a magnifying glass moved regularly from point to point, back and forth over the card. This burns an image of the sunny and cloudy periods (fainter or unburnt areas) and therefore captures the light conditions at that particular place and time. An understated work of intense concentration and precision that presses my ink-drawing buttons.

Roger Ackling's Five hour cloud drawing

There are clear parallels here - though one uses bumps along a road, and the other changes in sunlight levels, they are both one-offs - recording that couldn't be repeated in another time or place. With this in mind, I was drawn to the Sound Matters exhibition currently at Solent University's Sir James Matthews Building as it explores ways of turning sound into other art and craft-forms. Most relevant here are probably Landscape and Weave Waves.

Landscape, by Max Eastley, uses a motor and magnets to create forms from tiny metal fragments on the surface of a horizontal painted canvas. So, magnetic fields turned into a record of their influence. Mmm... science...

Landscape, Max Eastley

Weave Waves by Scanner and Ismini Samanidou presents a textile depicting - in fine detail - the sound of their breaths, digitally recorded, then translated into instructions for a weaving machine. The outcome - another transduction - is a thing of subtle, contemporary beauty.

Weave Waves by Scanner and Ismini Samanidou

The exhibition's subtitle is 'exploring sound through forms', so head along and have look (it's in Southampton until 8th March 2014), and why not explore movement, light, magnetism and anything else as forms as well - transduce!