Author Archives: lisa

Shellshock – behind the scenes of chapter 2

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Chapter 2 – DON’T JUDGE A FOX BY HIS TAIL

The dog behind the character

Foxtail

Meet Foxtail. Foxtail is the first dog that I rescued off the streets of Santiago, a loyal and reliable friend, and a mentor to our heroine Shellshock. Before Shelby (or Shellshock as I call her) came into our lives Foxtail was the only dog of the household for a whole year. His life was chill, and maybe even a little bit boring. He didn’t mind though, because the life that he endured previously was anything but fun.

Santiago is a city populated with feral and homeless dogs, the way that most big cities are filled with pigeons. Here, generations of dogs breed and colonize city streets, alleys, and local dumps for generations on end. Many of these unfortunate creatures don’t know what it’s like to have a home. Foxtail was born and raised on the streets, but he had high hopes of one day being a house dog. That day came when he was less than a year old.

In Chapter 2 of Shellshock, Foxtail will tell his tale of how he came to be a house dog and what it was like living on the streets prior to that.

In the meantime, I will tell you a little bit about him and what an incredible job he has been doing in helping me raise Shellshock.

Foxtail teaching Shellshock how to drink from water dishes. Shellshock’s day 3 with us.

When Shellshock appeared under a tree in front of our house one day, she was badly hurt, starved, and had difficulty standing, breathing, drinking and even keeping her eyes open. She spent the following three days in a nearby clinic, in the hands of a very talented and devoted veterinarian. When she was finally released into our care, she required constant attention and assistance. She was still very weak and seemed to not know anything about being a dog. Foxtail, who is usually not very interested in socializing with other canines, took her under his wing immediately.

Foxtail sharing his favorite pillow with Shellshock.

He began sharing his most prized possessions with her, sharing his favorite pillows, and teaching her which areas of the yeard are used for which purposes.

Shellshock enjoying a dog house for the first time ever.

He even invited her to share his own summer dog house, and let her put her name on it. She didn’t know that such luxuries existed.

Before long, these two were inseparable, and as soon as Shellshock gained some strength and weight they were always playing, scheming and laughing together.

Foxtail and Shellshock laughing at a joke that only they could hear.

It soon became apparent that Foxtail’s new job was not just to teach this pup how to dog, but also to keep her out of trouble. Her energy turned out to be endless, and her mind never-resting. We also began finding her in high places all of a sudden. One day she would be hanging off a windowsill, one day she would be on top of a wall, or on a garden trellis. We began to suspect that this pup can hover.

Today, almost five years later, we live far away from Santiago, in the countryside. Foxtail and Shellshock have several acres of land to play on. They share an elevated dog den, equipped with two rooms and a terrace, and when it gets chilly outside they live and play in the house more than they do outdoors. The two are completely inseparable. Where one goes, the other immediately follows. They hunt together, play together, defend their home together, even take trips to the vet together when only one of them needs the attention.

Goofing off in the field.

Rolling around on their terrace.

Going to the vet together. Foxtail is not a fan, but Shellshock remembers that a vet makes everything better.

Sharing everything.

By turning these two amazing companions into graphic novel characters, I want to tell their story from multiple angles. The aim of “Shellshock” is not to burden the readers with the tragedic reality of street life, neglect or abuse. While these topics are addressed, I try to balance my novel with humor, delight, and beauty that these incredible creatures teach me every day. I don’t want to make my readers to cry and to harbor negative emotions towards the human race. “Shellshock” also demonstrates the generous and kind side of humanity, as well as the dangerous and reckless side of canine life. Life is complicated and messy, and so is the issue of homeless dogs. Mainly, I want my readers to see dogs the way that Shellshock and Foxtail are teaching me to see them and to enjoy their journey.

Working on the novel

On average, a single edition of a given graphic novel is 35 pages in length and takes between three months and a year for a team of four to ten people to create. Kat Dattilo and I are the only two people involved in the creation, editing, production, and publication of “Shellshock,” and we do it all in our spare time from our day jobs, paid artist contracts, commissions, a farm and a family to manage. In total “Shellshock” consists of 6 books, or chapters, each roughly 35 pages long. The entire story is already written, by me, and together we work on illustration and coloring one chapter at a time. Because we do not have the luxury of taking this project on full time, and because we each have to fill multiple production and post-production roles, it takes about five to six months of continuous work to produce one chapter that will take you guys less than half an hour to read, but days, months and years to enjoy the artwork. Finally, with all said and done, we get to keep $2.00 each from each book sale. Needless to say, we do not do this for the money.

Why do we do it?

We both feel that Shellshock’s story is one that needs to be told. Through her amazing character and a splash of fantasy, we can cover a wide range of dog and human issues that are very important to address. Issues like homeless dogs, where they come from, why they spread, why they may be dangerous as well as sad and helpless, why they need help, how they can be helped, how this situation can be prevented, how house dogs are treated, and finally, the climax of it all, the ethics of dog racing. At the same time, we want to entertain the readers and present dogs in such a human and relatable way, that people will want to spend more time with their dogs, and take that one extra step to house or help house a dog in need.

Separately from raising awareness about dogs and entertaining dog lovers, Kat and I plan to donate to actual dog rescue groups. Our promise to you, the supporters, is that with each new 100 sales made, we will donate 30% of our earnings from those 100 sales to a new dog rescue group. Announcements on these events will be made on Facebook in Shellshock’s personal page. Of course, 30% of what we make is not much, but it’s a start. Help us spread the word about Shellshock and we can start making a bigger difference for real dogs.

How we do it

In an earlier article, I took you through the step by step design, drawing, coloring, and formatting process that Kat and I follow when creating these books for you. If you haven’t yet read that one, I think you will find it very interesting and informative. It takes you on a journey from the very first sketch, through a sea of edits, all the way to the final brilliantly painted by Kat color version of a given panel. You can read about it here. This behind-the-scenes information also appears at the back of chapter 1 of “Shellshock.”

In this volume, we have a surprise for you. When Foxtail speaks and tells his tale, the drawing style switches to a new and different format. I think you guys will really like it. But, you must wait for the book to come to find out. The new chapter, and every new chapter from now on will also start with a few “previously on Shellshock” pages to get you guys caught up with the story in case you did not read the previous chapter, or in case you need a refresher even if you did.

A bit of a tease

Please enjoy the pictures. Visit Shelby’s personal page, check out Chapter 1 if you haven’t already, and do stay tuned for Chapter 2.

Thank you all for making this possible.

Previously on “Shellshock”

 

My line work in progress

 

Kat’s panel painting in progress

 

One of the pages inside Chapter 2

 

Thank you for reading.

You can purchase your own copies of Shellshock chapters here. They come in a printed and bound paperback format as well as e-books.

You can even read them for FREE with Kindle Unlimited.

Remember that 30% of every 100 sales will be donated to dog rescue groups, so every purchase makes a real-life difference.

 

Back to the basics

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Regardless of how comfortable you get drawing complex objects and composition, it’s always important to practice and review the basics. Today I will be drawing three apples and I want to invite you to join me.

I am working in my digital program Corel Painter 18, using pencils and dry acrylic brushes. I am doing this digitally for two reasons. One, I am involved in a lot of digital painting projects at this time, and it’s the Corel brushes that I personally need to practice using. Two, I can take high-resolution screenshots. This way you see exactly what I see. Taking photographs of pencils drawings always introduces a level of distortion, depending on lighting and the angle at which the photo is taken. The principles that I am about to introduce apply to any style of drawing, however. You can achieve the same exact effects with pencils, pastels, chalks, watercolor, acrylic paint, oil paint, etc. I hope you join me on this little journey. So grab your paper and pencils and let’s begin.

Ideally, the best way to practice drawing is to draw from life. I set up my three apples on the table. Because I am taking you guys along, and because I want you to practice drawing the same exact subjects with a fixed light source, I took a photograph of my apples. Feel free to save it, print it, blow it up on your computer screen. However you choose to do it, you should always have your subject clearly displayed in front of you as you draw it.

 

A photograph that I took especially for this exercise

I will be drawing my apples in a realistic style with a touch of dry brush strokes. I want the final result to obviously look like a color drawing or a painting. I am not going for photorealism. Yet, I am aiming to have the apples look as much as the photograph in shape, color, and light as possible. I will not be adding elements of fantasy or caricature or any type of abstraction. I am going for mathematical and biological accuracy, depicted in a painterly style. You may choose a different drawing/painting style, ranging from simple sketchy illustration all the way to highly-polished photorealism.

My finished drawing

Now that you have your photo of the apples and a blank page to work on, where to begin? First, we must observe what we are about to draw. Don’t rush to start sketching. Look at what you are about draw and decide what exactly you are depicting and why. In this case, we have three apples. Why three? We want to practice drawing an apple, and having multiple apples in one scene allows us to practice color, shape, and position variation in a single composition. Having multiple apples will also allow us to practice a little bit of depth perception. Finally, three is a great number for this exercise because anything more than three would be either too busy, too boring to work with, or so large a number that the subject would no longer be a few apples, but a pile of apples. The pile would become a single object, and we approach drawing something like that differently. Finally, when depicting multiple objects, it’s always good practice to use an odd number rather than even. Our eye just responds to odd numbers more positively. Odd numbers suggest natural randomness, while even numbers suggest arranged symmetry.

Inspecting this photo, we clearly see three apples, with one obviously in the foreground. I mentally mark my apples in order from more to least important. The apple closest to us the most important one to me. It’s in focus and it displays the most interesting details, like the imperfections of the skin and the little extending stem. This is the most valuable subject here and I will spend the most time working on it. The second apple is the one on the left. It also shows some level of detail and a stem, but it is slightly out of focus and is less interesting. The third is barely a spherical shape in the background. Its job is just to help set the scene and suggest space and distance. I will spend the least amount of time on it.

Assigning value to your subjects

Now that we know what we are looking at, what it means to us, and what we want to show our audience, let’s begin.

For many, it’s good practice to begin with a light sketch. Using a pencil or a piece of chalk, mark out where your subjects will be. Make sure to keep your lines very light, and barely visible. You want to be able to either erase or cover them completely as you proceed. Some may feel comfortable making only mental sketches, as I often do. But, it’s ok to actually draw your lines. Just make sure to not draw thick and defined outlines. There are styles that call for nice clean contours, but that is not what we are practicing here.

The sketch lines should be quick, rough and barely visible

 

Depending on your tool, style of sketching, and hand stability, you may sketch cleaner, simpler lines. It’s all very personal.

For the ease of presentation, I made the sketch lines a bit thicker and bit darker than I would when drawing. Working digitally, of course, I have the luxury of erasing the outline layer with a click of a button. When working with real pencils, do take care to keep the lines very light.

Personally, on something like this I do not use sketch lines. I go straight into building shapes with larger brushes. Selecting a dry acrylic brush and a neutral greyish-purplish color, I begin to roughly shape my apples by marking the darkest parts of the fruit.

First brush strokes

 

Still working with very rough and very casual brush strokes, I add more color to begin building my spherical shapes

When drawing from life or photographs, many people make the mistake of fixating on the tiny detail, and that is how they lose track of the whole picture. Examine the photograph once more. Do you see all the tiny specs and marks on the skin of the apples? To copy them all exactly as they appear in life would be madness. It would take a really long time, and unless you are going for some kind of a photorealism record, it would be completely pointless. After all, the photo already captured all that detail. In art, we aim to convey the feeling of the object rather than its absolute accuracy. How do you see these apples? They are obviously round in shape, they are vivid in color, and they are somewhat glossy in texture. That’s what we aim to depict. At this point, we are focusing mainly on the shape through the basic use of color.

I keep adding color while referencing my photograph. I also take a moment to roughly place the shadows to begin the three-dimensional feel

 

Layer by layer, I add more color, still using very broad brushstrokes

While you are building your shapes, it is important to be aware of your light source. It’s a good idea to set up direct lighting to create a fixed artificial light source that will introduce sharp and dramatic shadows. In this case, I took the photograph in soft, natural sunlight, but you can still clearly tell that the light is coming from up and left. I, therefore, make sure to place the shadows cast by the apples to the bottom right of the canvas. I also make sure to keep the lighter parts of the apples on the left and the darker on the right.

Always keep your light source consistent

At this point, the composition and the light source are pretty well established and I can proceed to the fun part – the detail. Now, there isn’t that much detail in apple painting, but we can still have fun with color and texture.

I now use smaller brushes to clean up the edges and to introduce detail to the stems and the skins

 

I keep adding minor detail to my number 1 apple

At this point, you may have noticed that I am paying a lot more attention to my number 1 apple while leaving 2 and 3 more imperfect. Note that I did not give clean edges to my fruit. Apple 3 barely has an outline at all. This is softer on the eye and a lot closer to how we actually perceive objects in space.

Now onto the really fun part – a bit of artistic expression. I am happy with the level of detail on my apples and I want to make them stand out more, so I am adding a splash of blue to the background. Here I switched to watercolor effect. On paper, you can use real watercolor to achieve a similar result. I am a huge fan of mixing media.

I experiment with color in a different medium

Our eye tends to see shadows as slightly blue. You may notice a touch of a bluish hint in the photograph. This is why I chose blue for my background. Also, blue really makes those red apples pop. The contrast of blue and red todgether makes both colors appear brighter than they really are.

I keep working with my dry brush to smooth out the flat background

While working with my somewhat abstract background, I still follow the rules of light and shadow. I do not just blindly place blue watercolor splashes behind the apples. I make sure that the blue is darker where the shadows would be darker in real life. Finally, I smooth out my watercolor layer with more dry acryslic work to really bring the whole composition together. I am almost happy with how this looks.

Applying final touches

I switch back to the large brushes and go over the whole picture, adding a bit more color and contrast. I notice that while my light source is strong and consistent, the apples will look better with their stems casting shadows. Now in the photograph, we do not see clear shadows cast by the stems. That is because the light source was too soft. I made my light source a bit sharper in this composition and I want to enhance it even more. I add the shadows that I cannot see in real life but that I know will be there if the light source is inhanced. Now I’m happy.

It is important not to overwork your piece. I can keep painting this for many more hours, perfecting every little blemish on the fruit surface, and making the stems hyperrealistic, but that is not what I set out to do. When I look at this painting, I cearly see three very vibrant apples. I can imagine the sound that one of them might make when I bite into it, and the sound another might make if I drop it on the floor. These apples have clearly defined shapes. You can tell that they have some weight to them as they seem to be rolling off to different sides. They are a little bit reflective, therefore probably very smooth to the touch, and they are very bright, made even more so with the introduction of that beautiful blue. I call this a success and I will leave it at this.

 

Now it’s your turn. Grab some apples, or eggs, or rocks, and start drawing. I will be posting some photos to work from in my Facebook group, TALM. Please feel free to drop by, grab some photos, and post your work in progress as well. I hope to see you there.

Nights And Mares AMOR flip-through

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For Valentine’s day 2019 I wanted to bring my fans something special, something different. Nights And Mares AMOR is the latest in the N&M universe and true to its nature it is a union of beauty and oddity. In this volume, you will find classic characters as well as strange mythical creatures. You will discover passion as well as heartbreak, the lust of a lover and the love of a mother alike.

Based on your requests I tailored these illustrations to reflect my personal drawing style over the confines of traditional stark coloring lines. I want you to experiment with different methods of coloring, with considering the light source, with really giving these compositions mood through light and color. These images are not designed for the click-and-fill style digital coloring. They are, however, excellent for the digital painters as well as traditional pen, pencil, and watercolor colorists.

Nights And Mares AMOR is available in a digital (PDF) download form on ETSY and in print on Amazon.

Enjoy and happy coloring!

 

Get your PDF download here.

Get your paperback here.

Inspiration vs Plagiarism

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“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.” – Edward Hopper

Inspiration: noun  in· spi· ra· tion | \ˌin(t)-spə-ˈrā-shən – A divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation. (Merriam-Webster)

Plagiarism: noun pla· gia· rism | \ˈplā-jə-ˌri-zəm – The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. (Oxford Dictionary) Continue reading →

Nights And Mares /Halloween/ flip-though

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Dear colorist, in this volume I invite you to explore yet another chapter of the Nights And Mares universe. To celebrate my favorite holiday, I created characters that will entertain, intrigue, mesmerize and maybe even scare you on your coloring journey. Each page appears twice in this book: once in its basic line form and once with added greyscale effects. You may choose to use the secondary images as references for color placement, color them as well as the line drawings, or you may simply enjoy them as free-standing illustrations.

If you are already enjoying Nights And Mares – Femme Macbre, and Nights And Mares – Circus, you will find Halloween full of pleasant surprises, new characters, and different patterns, drawn in the familiar, highly detailed style. Staying true to my N&M world, in this book I once again focus on the beauty of the grotesque and the unusual.

So, without further ado, I invite you to jump in and color. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to color. This book is your playground. Go crazy.

This book is available in print on Amazon and as a PDF download on ETSY.

 

PDF version

Printed version

Shellshock – behind the scenes of chapter 1

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It all began one sunny day, on a dead end street in Santiago Chile, 2014. That was the day I found a dying discarded pup, carefully placed under a tree by my house, a little bit of food and little bit of water by her side. That day and that dog changed my life. Shellshock is a graphic novel based on the broken little pup that grew into a beautiful swan. It is a heart-warming story that will take you on multiple fantastic adventures and will shed some new light on the magical creatures that dogs really are.

My Inspiration

Real life Shellshock is my dog Shelby. She is my best friend and loyal companion. She is a living reminder of human ignorance towards dogs, and also living proof that traumatic experiences can be completely forgotten. There is never a trace of sadness in Shelby’s eyes. Quite the opposite in fact. Her big amber eyes glow with mischief and joy her every waking moment. Her energy is endless and she is always looking for trouble. It is her “human” personality that inspired me to tell her story in illustrated form.

Shellshock is a novel in 6 parts. It tells Shelby’s story through fantasy and adventure. For instance, because we really don’t know who placed her under the tree and why, my husband and I always joke that she just appeared in the “puppy portal” one day. That’s a much better reference to the place where I found her than “the tree where she was left to die by an ignorant coward.” In the book she travels to the puppy portal from ancient Egypt.

The novel will reveal that in ancient Egypt dogs were the dominant species, and humans were their pets. It was a peaceful world, where pets were loved and cared for. Unlike in the modern world, where dog is supposedly man’s best friend. While some dogs in some parts of the world have very cozy lives, there are millions still who are chained up, beaten, and even forced to race at the track. I wrote this book to illustrate the real problems that dogs today face in South America. I chose South America because this is where I live and these are the problems that are see every day. I didn’t want this book to be heavy and depressing. I didn’t want the readers to feel sad or guilty when reading it. Instead, I wanted each page to be entertaining, funny, witty, and just beautiful. This is why Shelby (or Shellshock as I often call her) is my main character.

Just like in real life, Shellshock conveys no sadness, only joy. Her illustrated character is equally goofy, fun-loving, ridiculous and just plain lovable. By following Shellshock on her adventures through the 6 chapters, the readers will enjoy a good action-adventure, while also picking up on the darker moral dilemmas on a more subconscious level. I want to get people thinking. Really thinking. I believe that cruelty is rare and is a small part of dog problems today. Ignorance, however is a much larger beast.

Shelby’s first moments with me.

Take Shelby, for instance. The person who left her under my tree, when she clearly had hours to live, wasn’t cruel. They had good intentions. They placed her in front of a house that already had a dog in the yard. They placed some food a water near her to indicate that she is left there intentionally. But what if I didn’t come out to mow my lawn that day? I shudder to think, even today, that if I was mowing only a day later, I would have found a dead pup instead of my best friend. It was pure chance that Shelby got rescued by me when she did. The person who left her, didn’t think to ring the doorbell or leave her on the doorstep with a note. They didn’t take her to the vet. They didn’t take steps to either heal her or “put her out of her misery.” They just hid her in the leaves, under a tree, on a dead end street. What is that? Cowardice? I say ignorance. That is someone who was never taught how to handle finding a dying pup. They did the best they could and it happened to work out fine. But how many of these stories don’t have a happy ending?

The Book

Shelby making a silly face.

Shelby is a such a colorful character in real life, that it is only natural for me to make her into a goofy cartoon personality. As an illustrator, I love creating characters and their setting. I wrote the entire story in a month, and during the following month I roughly sketched out all the panels for Chapter 1. As I began drawing actual panels and characters, it quickly became obvious that I need a colorist, a great colorist. My strength is character building, but I am also anxious to always move forward, create more panels, set those characters loose on the pages. I don’t have the skill or a patience to paint every panel in full detail. But I know someone how does.

Katherine Dattilo is a brilliant digital painter, who has already collaborated with me on many unrelated illustrations. When we met as artists, we clicked right away. She takes my line work, and breaths life into it with her colors. I wanted her for this project. Kat’s strength in digital painting is light. I don’t know what she does exactly that’s different from other painters I know, but her depiction of light and shadow really takes you to a different realm when you look at her work. She also paints my illustrations in the exact light and mood that I envisioned when I drew the image. It’s like she reads the energy in my lines and translates that energy into something that others can see too. This kind of an artistic relationship is very rare and is priceless. I was thrilled when Kat accepted my proposal to work on Shellshock together.

My line drawing of an ancient Egyptian dog market square.

 

Kat’s magical coloring of exactly how I imagined the place lit.

Chapter 1 of Shellshock is set mainly in ancient Egypt. It took a lot of research both for me in drawing the settings, and for Kat in getting the colors and light just right, to bring our ancient canine Egypt to life. For instance the sky map seen on the wall of the Seers’ workshop, is my dog version of actual ancient Egyptian idea of the sky.

Ancient Egyptian sky map.

The sky map seen in one of the panels in the novel.

Of course the most exciting part of bringing this book life, for me, is drawing Shellshock herself. In order to depict this amazing character exactly how I envision her, I spend a lot of time chatting with Kat about my Shelby. I sent her many photos, videos, and stories of Shelby’s real life adventures, facial expressions, and crazy dog decisions that she makes. It was very important to me to really capture Shelby’s personality in my book. Kat had no problem transforming my line drawings into my Shellshock.

One of the line drawings that I sent to Kat for transformation.

 

The transformation begins.

 

Transformation complete.

 

As a special bonus, Chapter 1 also features several behind-the-scenes pages of how Kat and I work. In these pages you will learn some of the technical secrets of our craft.

My Aim

Can I really be angry at the stranger who left Shelby under my tree? After all, she ended up with me. Where do these broken pups from anyway? Why are there so many dogs roaming the streets of Chile? Why are the ones behind household fences chained up with not even a water dish in reach? Why are there no dog shelters in this country? What ARE people supposed to do when an injured dog shows up on their doorstep? All these and many other questions are the reason for Shellshock the novel. Nothing is black and white in this world, and human cruelty is not the main reason for dogs suffering on a large scale. Lack of education is the main reason. Lack of action. Lack of planning. I aim to change that, one story at a time.

My real life goofball.

In real life, Shelby likes to tell her story to as many people as she can. She (with my human help) signs petitions against dog racing, including the petition banning racing in Argentina, which we won! Shelby and I also take the time to explain the importance of dog sterilization to locals, to prevent the ever exploding population of feral and homeless dogs here. Feral dogs breed, form into packs and gangs and very quickly become unadaptable. Legalizing hunting dogs (a recent Chilean development), while claiming that sterilization is immoral, is a backwards thinking. Shelby and I like to shed better light on the situation.

One of the greatest reasons for dog mistreatment and neglect in this part of the world, is that dogs are not seen as the amazing, intelligent, emotional creatures that they are. Instead, they are often viewed as objects. They are left behind when a family moves to a new home. Like a piece of unwanted furniture. They are used as alarms when they are kept on chains outside homes. They are used to breed to sell puppies of desirable pedigree. Depicting dogs in a very human way in my book, is one of the ways that I aim to change the view of dogs. In my book, dogs have all the same emotions as we do, and they face all the same problems and dilemmas. I hope that by bonding with my canine characters, the readers will see other dogs in the same magical light.

A fragment of Shellshock’s training scenes in Chapter 1.

 

Another fragment from a panel in Chapter 1.

Kat and I also plan to designate a portion of our royalties, every 100 sales, to reputable dog rescue organizations. We will be announcing these events when they happen, with proof of sales and donations.

Publication

You can purchase your Shellshock here. It is available in print as well as on Kindle.

If you are already enjoying this book, please take a moment to leave an Amazon review. It will be greatly appreciated.

 

We also invite you learn more about myself, Kat, and Shelby by following us on Facebook. Yes, Shelby has her own Facebook page, where she posts her real life adventures. She is a very social dog, and she will be thrilled to have more followers. Click on the names below to visit our profiles.

Lisa Mitrokhin

Katherine Dattilo

Shelby “Shellshock”

We thank you kindly for your interest and your support. Help us spread the word about Shellshock by sharing this article with your friends and family.

 

Shellshock and I wishing you a great day.

 

Nights And Mares dolls 2017-2018

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Nights And Mares Toys is my line of unique and unusual dolls, skulls, and taxidermy displays. In this article I will focus only the dolls. Some of these characters are figments of my imagination, while others are very specific commissions. From elegant ladies to wild winged shape-shifters, each of my creations is made with all of my heart and all of my craft.  I take into account every possible little detail, including undergarments that will never see the light of day, nail polish, individual hairs on the eyebrows, jewelry that actually sits in pierced holes, etc.

Nights And Mares is a strictly no-kill workshop. Every taxidermy element, every feather, or bone, or tooth, or wing or hoof, are specimens that I gathered from local roadkill or natural farm deaths. I live and work in a rural part of Chile, and there is no shortage of animal remains if you know what to look for.

Lenora

PERSONALITY: Leonora is a porcelain-skinned beauty and she knows it. Her skin is flawless, with tiny freckles like intricate constellations, ruby red lips, and half closed eyes.

DESCRIPTION: Lenora’s face was an absolute joy to create. It took days of delicate painting with the tiniest of brushes to get her skin tone and expression just right. What took even more time and required even more tiny detail was her dress. Hand made from three types of cotton fabric, chiffon, lace, ribbon and leather, her dress is light weight, elegant and perfectly fitting. Underneath she has black lingerie and red high stockings. She wears long black lace gloves and a matching ribbon on her black and silver hair. For jewelry she wears only a black lace choker and a simple silver cross on her neck. Even her fingernails are individually painted. Her tiny boots are handmade from leather, plastic and adhesives, with hand-painted tiny gold buckles. She is a picture of perfection.  She stands perfectly balanced on a wood cut stand, with a soft felt base. Together with the stand she measures about 26 cm tall.

CURRENT HOME: Among dolls and curiosities. USA.

Hel

 

PERSONALITY: One of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, Hel is the ruler of the land for the dead that did not die in battle. In life, Hel was a beautiful and polite girl. Well, at least half of her was. Her other half was rotten and withered like that of a corpse. Hel is well mannered and elegant. She has nothing against living people, but she prefers the company of the dead. Her kingdom “Hel” is not a place of punishment, it is a great hall that provides a sanctuary to all those who did not die fighting. Her hall is for women, and children, and the old, and the sick… for all of us who will most likely not go to Valhalla.

DESCRIPTION: My Hel is a tiny marionette. As she hangs effortlessly on her strings, she appears weightless and elegant; polite, but a bit of a tease. The half of her face that is alive is innocent and radiant, like that of a gullible child. The side that is dead is void of all expression of life, but it is neither evil nor scary, it is simply dead. Death is a part of every life, and Hel wears that side of her without hesitation or embarrassment. She knows that were are all already dead and she does not judge us for it.
In the hands of a handler, however, Hel can move her arms, wrists, knees, and bow her head, in a playful manner.

She is hand crafted and constructed from wood, plastic, discarded doll parts, copper wire, and cloth. Her arms are made of wood from the forest by the river where I live – hand carved and polished to match her size and personality. Her face is sculpted and painted as well as lacquered for protection. Her hair cut, colored and styled in various shades of blue, purple and black. Her dress and undergarments are tailored and hand stitched to present a cute but daring little girl.

Hel’s lacquered, black, wooden handle is lightweight and easy to use with one hand or both. The strings are threaded through tiny holes and anchored by shiny black beads. On their other ends, the strings are attached to Hel’s joints. The attachments are easy to remove should the owner chose to replace the strings, lengthen or shorten them, or move them to different joints on the body. As a matter of fact, she does not even have to be a marionette. Many of the strings can be removed and she she can be hung as a display doll, or sat, or laid out, or otherwise posed, should one find the strings unsightly or the movements unnecessary.

Head to toe she measures 28cm. Arms outstretched, fingertip to fingertip she is also 28cm. With her current strings from handle to toe, the whole assembly is 66cm.

CURRENT HOME: Home of a doll and taxidermy collector. USA.

Purslane

PERSONALITY: This girl knows exactly what she likes and she will stop at nothing to get the perfect accessory to make her feel like “herself”, even if that accessory is a new face.

DESCRIPTION: Purslane is a remodeled doll, with a hand painted face, handmade garments and haircut, and a collection of unique accessories picked especially by Lady Purslane herself. In her hair she wears ribbons as well as real animal vertebrae. Her right ear is actually pierced. She is wearing earrings, a chain and a choker around her neck, and bracelets and anklets of stainless steel as well as leather. Her outfit is made of silky fabric, lace, leather, velvet and fishnet. She stands effortlessly on a wooden base, which is lined with black velvet. Her attachment to the base is virtually invisible. She appears to just be casually standing on it on her tiptoes. Purslane’s head, hips, arms, elbows and wrists move in almost all humanly achievable directions, but she prefers this pose the most. Her actual hight is almost 25 cm, but with the base she stands the full 30 cm.

CURRENT HOME: Among other collectable dolls. Australia.

Aiden

 

PERSONALITY: Aiden is a shapeshifter. She can be all girl or all bird, but she prefers to display her favorite parts of both. In her most comfortable moments she takes advantage of her highly functional bird feet, while also enjoying the dexterity of human hands. She displays her magnificent wings every chance she gets, and while her face can pass for a human girl, it always maintains an owl-like stare. She is a quick and silent hunter. Her small fairy size limits her kills to field mice and road lizards, but that keeps her satisfied. She prefers to come out at night, but is stealthy enough to hunt in daylight as well. Make no mistake, however, she is no beast. In her human form, Aiden is a very clever and well-spoken young lady, when she needs to be.

DESCRIPTION: Aiden is my most unusual OOAK taxidermy doll to date. Her body is constructed out of various plastic doll body parts, hand painted to give her a new face an personality. Her plastic doll’s legs gradually transition into real talons from a roadkill bird that I collected not far from my rural home. Her magnificent wings also come from a road accident avian victim, combined with feathers from my personal chickens and peacocks, and shaped to look like what I imagine angel wings look like, but also predator wings. She wears a tiny pelt dress made of hand-tanned rabbit fur, also roadkill. Her hair is styled and died to reveal several shades of grey, blue and black and well as silvery white. Her face, body and feet are lacquered for protection and for aestheticism. The delicate sheen gives the face a feel of some kind of a sentient porcelain.

Aiden is a wall display doll. She is permanently mounted onto her picture frame.  Above her head is a crown of costume jewels and a vertebrae from a small mammal, possibly a weasel of a cat.

It was a rare alignment of all these roadkill parts that came to me around the same time, plus the inspiration for this particular doll face that made the creation of Aiden possible. This is why an Aiden replica (honoring my no-kill taxidermy code) is virtually impossible. I can create other winged dolls, but there will be variation in wings, fur, and talons.

Her dimensions are: across or wingtip to wingtip = 43cm, lengthwise or top of the frame to bottom of feet = 43cm, depth or from wall to tips of the wings = 17cm. The doll herself, from head to talon = 26 cm.

CURRENT HOME: I created Aiden as a personal companion for myself. She lives even now in my home studio. However, she says that if the right new human comes along, she would be willing to travel, and see other parts of the world.

If you suspect you may be that human, you can view her complete profile and details here.

Patches

PERSONALITY: Playful, innocent, easily engaged, but also easily bored.

DESCRIPTION: Patches is a commission puppet. I was asked to a create a clown marionette based on a drawing of a clown that I did a while back. I chose to make the boy version of that clown. The name was selected by the client. I had a name a personality to work with. Everything else was up to me.

Patches is made almost entirely out of hand-carved wood. His creation took two weeks and a lot of patience. You can read the full story of his creation here.

He is one of my largest dolls. When standing on the ground he comes almost up to my knee, which makes him roughly 35 cm (measurements get tricky when hats are involved)

CURRENT HOME: USA

Harebrained Jane

PERSONALITY: Jane is an enigma.  She is silent and reserved, but not shy. Better to leave her to her own thoughts, and no matter what happens, DON’S ASK ABOUT THE RABBIT.

The original painting inspiration

DESCRIPTION: Jane was a commission. I was asked to create a doll based on a very odd painting of a girl with a rabbit on her head. The painting was childish and charming, and as strange and unrevealing as Jane herself. It was not at all obvious from the painting whether the rabbit was real or not, dead or alive, or if the girl was even aware of him. I replicated the face and the costume as accurately as was humanly possible, while also making Jane a bit older and more elegant as was requested, and making the rabbit more toy like as requested. I think the tiny silver jacket with the fringe collar was the most challenging part to make.  It was quite a rewarding experience all the way to the end.

My older version of Jane with a toy rabbit for a hat.

When I was ready to present the photos of my creation to the client, who has been very eager to chat but who still hadn’t paid me even a deposit on the piece, I was suddenly unable to reach him. When at last he replied with some awkward excuses and explanations, it became obvious that he was just a tourist client. Tourists happen in my profession. They are people who like the experience of being served. They enjoy ordering the commission and seeing it come to life at their bidding. They go through all of the emotions and the actions of a client purchasing an art piece, but they never intend to pay for the work and when the job is done they leave. I’ve been burned by tourists before.  I did not, however, feel like my time was wasted with this creation. I loved making Jane and was sure that her right owner would come along one day. So she did. Not a month later, Jane was spoken for.

CURRENT HOME: With her real human owner.

Tooth Fairy (original)

PERSONALITY: Tooth fairies are somewhat of a pest in this neck of the woods, yet a fully preserved specimen is very hard to come by. Apparently they go off to some magical place to die when it’s time. This one is quite fresh and well preserved. She has all of her limbs and wings, and most of her teeth. Found already dead, rigor mortis setting in quickly, she was clutching a tiny fairy skull. I believe that in life she was a prankster, as most tooth fairies tend to be.

DESCRIPTION: The Tooth Fairy was the first doll I made. She is about 14 cm tall and the entire display in a frame is 34 x 24 cm. I sculpted her from discarded doll parts and various adhesives. Her face is entirely reconstructed, new eyes set, teeth added, warts hand planted. Her wings are two peacock wing feathers and two chicken feathers from my own birds. She is a framed, wall mounted display.

CURRENT HOME: I can’t recall if she flew off to Europe or the Netherlands, but she did go in the same box with Harebrained Jane.

 

Tooth Fairy (copy)

About a year after the creation of the original Tooth Fairy, I was commissioned a look-alike. The second version of the Tooth fairy is identical in size, color, and character, but with minor variation. The most obvious difference is in the wings. This version has fuller, rounder wings. They are two tail feathers from my pet peahen, and two wing feathers from exotic pheasants I met at a local botanical garden.

Tooth Fairy (baby)

PERSONALITY: As infants, tooth fairies do not yet have a sense of humor or the cunning of adult fairies. Baby fairies, like baby everythings, are innocent, naive, chubby and clumsy.

DESCRIPTION: My tooth fairy is becoming a recognized character among Nights And Mares followers. I have had multiple requests for the four armed, feather winged, small blue creature holding a tiny skull. She has to have spiked black hair and warts on her face, mismatched eyes, and a signature ear to ear smile full of tiny teeth. The tooth fairy is always framed as a wall display. This one meets all the requirements of my blue tooth fairy, but it is a baby.

CURRENT HOME: My home studio. Available here.

Layla

PERSONALITY: Layla is an angel trapped in a doll’s body. She is slightly disoriented by the transformation, but her angelic nature does not allow her to despair. She is gentle and loving, a little bit spaced out most of the time, and always reaching out to the heavens.

DESCRIPTION: When I began working on this doll, I didn’t know what the result would be. I had to listen to what she was telling me. Laylah wanted to be an angel. An unusual subject matter for me, but the doll has spoken. Laylah’s face took two full days to paint and polish. I tailored and hand stitched her dress and head-dress, and I also hand made most of her jewelry. Her wings are real bird wings, having once belonged to a male quail (native to central Chile) that I found dead several months prior. The wing preservation took about a month.

Laylah is an upright decorative doll. She stands on a small wooden block, finished with a soft felt base, as most my doll bases tend to have. There is slight play to her position, but only slight. Both of her arms move freely and her head tilts just a bit if desired.

She is an exceptionally detailed doll, with much character in her face and eyes. She seems to like to raise her left hand a lot, almost in a blessing manner. Laylah is the name of a angel of conception and childbirth. To me she is the guiding spirit of the birth of inspiration.

CURRENT HOME: Home of a doll collector. Australia.

Rosemary

The original drawing of “Human Nature” is an adult coloring page that appears in my book Nights And Mares – Femme Macabre. Rosemary is the one in the womb. This is the page colored by Laurie Gregory, the current owner of Rosemary.

PERSONALITY: Rosemary is a sweetheart of a baby. She is quiet, gentle, and likes to be held.

DESCRIPTION: Rosemary is a very unique creation in that she has a canine skull grafted onto her human head. The original concept for this doll was called Human Nature, and it was a human baby with a wolf head. I have a set of illustrated characters who are a human/wolf family. The idea being that part of human nature is a beast – something primordial, simple, honest, logical, but also formidable and impulsive – a wolf.

Since there are no wolfs where I live, but there is no shortage of roadkill feral dog remains, I used a dog skull and a babydoll. I work with skulls a great deal, but this is the first time I combined my skull work with my doll work. The preparation of the skull was pretty standard – a month of water treatment, cleaning, bleaching, removal of all the teeth for a thorough cleaning of the holes, resetting of all the teeth back in their places, gluing of the jaw for immobility, and finally painting and lacquering. Grafting the skull onto a baby doll’s head was tricky. It took several days, a great deal of sculpting of the connection points. I wanted the hollow eye sockets to have very realistic interior, very deep set, but without leaving the entire head hollow. The result was actually quite cool. The elongated dog snout protrudes from a baby-like skull structure and the giant hollow eyes sockets actually look like wide eyes of a very disturbing baby. I was quite pleased, and for the final touch I put a pink pacifier into one of tooth gaps.

Rosemary is a soft stuffed doll, with hard plastic hands and feet. She wears an adorable pink onesie with little cat designs, she has two large black buttons and some black lace ribbons here and there. Around her head, she wears a little pink ribbon to mach her outfit.

CURRENT HOME: With a surgical technician at a labor and delivery unit. USA.

Mab

PERSONALITY: Impulsive, unpredictable, with no insecurities. Being a fairy, Mab is a trickster. She is always looking for a new scheme.

DESCRIPTION: Mab is a mutant color-changing forest fairy. She is a commission doll. My client gave me a personality description and a color scheme, and told me to go crazy. Crazy I went. Mab has a whole other baby face on the side of her main face and a smile that is shared by both. While I couldn’t make her actually change color, I gave her a very pleasant gradient of purples, violets and fucsia. Mab would be fashionable if she wore clothes. She, however, does not. Her feet naturally morph into high heel shapes, and her short hair is styled into something that resembles my own short messy hair. Her wings are peacock wing feathers. She stands locked into a pose, looking like she is just about to do something, possibly crazy. She stands about 28 cm tall.

CURRENT HOME: Wales.

Fay the baby troll

My usual use for this size bird feet – talon amulets.

PERSONALITY: Fay is a bit mischievous. She looks small and sweet, although a bit crazed, but she has the reflexes of a feral cat and the appetite of a full-groun troll. She mainly feeds on birds, but small rodents will do as well.

DESCRIPTION: Fay is one of the smallest dolls I have ever made. She stands only about 10cm tall. Her dress is made of rabbit fur (personally tanned by me), and feathers (collected from my aviary). The blue ones are tiny neck feathers from my pet peacock. In her hand, Fay holds a bird foot – evidently all that remains from her latest meal. The foot once belonged to a local thrush. Usually I collect the dead bird feet to make charms, pendants or earrings, but it seems that Fay needed this one.

Fay was a surprise gift doll that I made for a good friend of mine here in Chile, so I actually get to visit her very once in a while.

CURRENT HOME: Chile

Susie May

PERSONALITY: Psycho.

DESCRIPTION: Susie May is a very unusual doll. She doesn’t have the typical wide eyed, smooth skinned face of most of my other dolls. She was a commission with very specific instructions. She was to be made to look like a doll from the 2002 film May. In the movie, the main character, May, has a doll named Susie. This doll has a very distinctive white ceramic face, a burgundy leather dress, straight brown hair, and she holds one arm behind her back. In the movie the doll, Susie, never leaves her glass box. My client didn’t want the glass box, but she did want some kind of a stand or a support. Instead of a box I put my version of the doll on to a hand crafted black wooden stand, equipped with what looks like a red leather back support, framed in black – very reminiscent of the original box.

Sculpting her face and making it look like rough ceramic was tricky. Mainly because my doll was much smaller than the one in the movie. Her very specific dress was also a challenge, but after some trial and error I finally achieved the leather look and feel as well the identical shade of burgundy.

The doll is called Susie May, and not just Susie, because she has attributes of May as well – mainly her long human legs. My doll is a morphing of Susie and May into one creature which, if you have seen the movie, is quite fitting.

CURRENT HOME: USA

Bone Collector

PERSONALITY: For a feline creature BC is surprisingly lacking in stealth. This is why she is not a hunter, but rather a gatherer – a gatherer of bones. Stumbling through the forest, stepping on every possible branch and twig as she goes, the only things left for her to collect are scattered bones. She doesn’t mind though. BC has an exceptional collection of razor sharp teeth. They may be tiny, but there are 200 of them. Eating that canine vertebrae is no big deal for her.

DESCRIPTION: BC has a body of a recycled doll, while her face is constructed from scratch, hand painted and lacquered. She is a feline humanoid, and has a cat-like face with a surreal set of tiny teeth, a pair of cat ears and a cat tail (made form real raccoon fur scraps). Her hair is a deep violet color and so are the stripes on and around her face. Her dress is hand-made from several different fabrics. It is decorated with tiny leather belts and she even has little metallic skull and bones badge. The bones she is holding are real animal bones – two feral dog and two rabbit vertebrae to be exact. She sits on a tree stump. It is dried and lacquered, and finished with a green felt base.

In her sitted position BC is only about 18 cm tall.

CURRENT HOME: In a home of a skull and taxidermy collector. USA

Deathica

PERSONALITY: A bit timid, but very bright. Deathica is a great workshop companion. I enjoyed her company in my studio very much.

DESCRIPTION: Deathica is not a doll that I made. She was sent to me for a make-over. Not much work was needed. Just a new dress, and new hair and makeup. The client provided me with the name Deathica and asked that the doll be made up to look a bit more gothic, but not scary or gory. A shade paler skin, with my signature shiny lacquer finish, and some deathly purple shadows around the eyes did the trick. New eyebrows for a more engaged expression, and a bit of a licorice tone on the lips that once held a pacifier.

Her hair was cheap synthetic and not very densely filled. You could clearly see her scalp, which made her look like an old lady or a cancer patient. I did some hair magic (artist’s secret) and gave her a full head of fluffy dark hair, and a cute haircut that frames her adorable face.

Her dress is vey simple, using some of my favorite fabric. Hel has a dress from this same fabric, and so do I personally. She has a clown-like Elizabethian collar with a single oversized button.

The new and improved Deathica was very well received, and I am told that she has a much happier doll energy now.

Here are her before and after shots.

CURRENT HOME: USA

 

I am currently working on a duel marionette commission of a very special famous couple, another elegant glamor girl doll, and a two-headed baby sister to the tooth-fairy. To see my creations as they happen, please visit and follow Nights And Mares Toys. If you wish to purchase any of my current or upcoming creations, my ETSY store is the place to visit. The inventory there is constantly updated with new dolls, toys and curiosities. Please feel free to reach out to me via Facebook or ETSY with commissions or restoration projects. Even though I live and work in Chile, I ship to clients all over the world. My dolls and curiosities have already gone out to many of the States, Canada, Several countries in Europe, the Netherlands, and Australia.

Making Patches the puppet

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Patches is a commission marionette based on a clown drawing I did some time back. I was a given a name and a style, and asked to create a dancing clown doll with a vintage feel and lots of personality. I decided to make a child Patches. I tried to imagine what the clown from my drawing looked like when he was a little boy. I thought it humorous that he was born with clown face paint.

Patches is constructed from wood, plastic, copper wire, various fabrics and a bunch of different glues and adhesives, oh yes, and strings of course. His face and hands are the only plastic parts, the rest is hand-carved wood. The face is grafted onto a head that fit his size and personality. It is of course hand painted to match the character.

The first thing I made was the face. Naturally, I needed him to have a personality above all.

 

The next step was to gather the limbs. Thankfully I live surrounded by an acacia forest, so there is no shortage of wood. I carved, sanded, and polished the perfect size limbs.

 

Setting of the joints is the single most important part in building a puppet. It is crucial to set joints securely, and allowing for free and smooth movement. For the head, I did not want complete rotation. I wanted front to back movement only. For that reason I set two hoops in the neck.

 

As I connected more joints, I had to wait for glues to set. I used that time to carve and polish more limbs.

 

The really fun part began with the assembly of the body. Watching my puppet come to life as he gained more limbs was truly fascinating.

 

I soon discovered that puppets are dramatic. Patches did not share my enthusiasm for limb attachment, and spent most of his time laying around and rolling his eyes.

 

He did however perk up when I began introducing clothes. These are his undergarments.

 

He got especially excited about socks.

 

But… he is a child after all, and dramatic displays of boredom soon recommenced.

 

Pants! Ooh, I got his attention once more.

 

Nope, never mind. Waiting for wood glue to set on shoes bore him nearly to death. Even his adorable oversized hat didn’t seem to cheer him up.

 

Total boredom.

 

This could be kind of exciting. After days in the workshop, we are in a new room. What’s this all about? Did you say … strings?

 

Yay! Strings!

 

Yay!

 

At last Patches is complete and content.

 

I even got some smiles.

 

Now it was time for his first walk alongside his creator.

 

That was a success.

 

The controls on Patches are a single, easy-to-maneuver handle. Ideally it requires two hands to operate complex moments. While one hand holds and directs the puppet, the other can pull on individual strings for finer movements of the doll’s arms and hands. The corners that maneuver the knee strings are extended. That way a knee string can be wrapped around the tip for a leg to remain lifted, while other maneuvers are being performed. There are two back strings and a head string. In a natural configuration, Patches holds his head up high. For him to bow his head, the back strings need to be held, allowing for the head to gently fall forward.

 

So ends the story of a girl and her clown. Well, not hers anymore I suppose. Now it is time for Patches to be wrapped in purple papers and bubble wrap and be sent to his forever home.

 

I hope you enjoyed this story. To view more of my creations, please visit and follow Nights And Mares Toys on Facebook. If you have an idea for a doll or a puppet, I am happy to take on new commissions. Please send me a private message here.

My decade of tailoring tattoos

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How I came to design and ink tattoos

A commission unicorn and peacock feather tattoo. Santiago, Chile. Designed and inked 2014.

As a child, I was always drawing. Every day, everywhere. This habit carried well into high school. I had a big black sketchbook bound with actual stitching and a hardcover. I carried that book with me everywhere and spent most of my class, recess, and after-school time drawing. School was a pretty boring and alienating time for me. I was well ahead of the curriculum and I had only one friend, who was possibly an even bigger outcast than I was. At least she also enjoyed doodling and storytelling. I am pretty sure she was real. Despite not belonging to any groups or circles in high school, I was not hated by peers, just avoided most of the time, unless my drawing skills were needed. Soon my drawing skills became needed by nearly everyone. By my second year of high school, I was visited under my staircase hideout on weekly basis by students asking for portraits of their dates (real and fantasy), biology class illustrations, and eventually tattoo designs. By senior year people were commissioning me tattoo designs that they actually took to local parlors to get inked.

After graduation I lost my “staircase studio” and spent the first years of college hanging out in downtown Manhattan bars and pubs, keeping to myself and my drawing. Bars, especially Irish bars, are great for picking up tattoo customers. In no time at all I had a local following. Sometimes I drew for money, sometimes for drinks, sometimes just for fun. One time I designed a full chest piece depicting a tiger, for a local fireman whose chest was covered in burn scars. I designed the tiger to twist and turn around the scars to hide them convincingly. It looked amazing on paper. He was very pleased and declared that he will only get it inked if I do it personally. “Pffft,” I snorted. “I can’t ink. I just draw.” “Why don’t you learn,” he said. My mind was blown. Why don’t I learn? It wasn’t until two years later that I actually took an apprenticeship with a professional tattooist. I never did ink that tiger, but once I got a taste of tattooing I was hooked.

 

The industry

Commission portrait of kids with Totoro. Santiago, Chile. Designed and inked 2015.

Around the time that I was learning how to tattoo, life took me to Krakow, Poland. It was there that I began working in a popular local studio. For free at first, but soon I worked my way to my first studio station, and eventually to a manager’s position in the shop. While I enjoyed working with human skin I found shop work to be unsatisfying and unrewarding. A tattoo parlor is a business and a good tattoo parlor is a well-oiled machine designed to spend as little time as possible working with the client and as much time as possible getting paid. It makes sense. That’s how a business is run. My thoughts, however, were that if you invest a little bit more time into the customers, you can potentially collect even more money and build a better reputation, not to mention make real art.

Tattoo parlors are notoriously scary, clinical and impersonal. The people who walk into parlors know that they want ink, but most of the time they have very little clue as to what exactly they want. A typical parlor’s solution to this dilemma is to sit all walk-ins on a sofa and have them look through books, searching for the perfect design. If they find nothing that catches their eye, they leave without having wasted any of the artists’ time. If they are able to settle on a particular panther or anchor or heart design from a  million of nearly identical images, they get processed and inked. Very few artists take the time to talk to the clients and even fewer take the time to design original artwork for them. My specialty was design work. I had no interest in inking copy/paste stars and flaming cobras for the rest of my life. By the time I returned to New York I was going solo.

 

Independent work

Working as an independent artist can be tough but ultimately rewarding. Back in New York City, I returned to my practice of meeting like-minded individuals who are drawn to my art, rather than inking strangers. Meeting people in New York is not difficult. In fact, it is difficult not to meet people. Three years into my tattoo career and I already had a self-inflicted left tattoo sleeve. A single ride on the subway wearing a t-shirt was guaranteed to land me a couple of customers weekly. All I had to do was go about my regular life. My clients gravitated to me themselves. Once we got to talking and discovered that we have similar artistic tastes, I would take my client to a bar or a coffee shop for a chat. In a friendly and relaxing atmosphere, we could talk like two friends instead of one being interrogated by the other. It’s amazing how much you can find out about what a person wants in a tattoo just by chatting about this and that and total nonsense. An hour or two of friendly conversation landed me free refreshments and a brand new client. Having gotten a rough psychological profile of my new prospect I could go home and begin sketching something really personal for them. My client and I would continue a back and forth conversation, tweaking the design until it was absolutely perfect, and then we would schedule an inking date at my home studio. I made a lot of good friends during these years. A tattoo session is a very intimate and personal time, during which client and artist can really bond through conversation.

Commission full back piece. “Jazz City”. Krakow, Poland. Designed and inked 2010.

Moving to Santiago, Chile didn’t change things for me very much. A city is a city, and while a little bit more conservative, Santiago is full of young professionals who are looking for non-mainstream designs. My new following found me within just a couple of months. I was invited to work in a local shop and landed a station there. Unlike my previous shop experience, here I was my own boss and spent as much time as needed with clients, kept my own hours, and paid my share for the space. After moving to the countryside, I continued working with my established clients, but this time I traveled to their homes for personal home sessions. Boy, did they love that! Imagine, not having to sit on the awkward leather couch to the boom of the mandatory death metal music, waiting your turn for hours, while listening to other people’s screams and moans. Instead, your artist just shows up at your convenience, like a masseuse, rolls out her station, sanitizes everything, you can watch a movie or play your own music, drink tea, take as many smoking breaks as you want, and just let your artist work for as long as is necessary. Once she is done, she cleans up, packs up, leaves, and you get to just recline on your couch and take care of your tattoo in the clean and quiet atmosphere of your own home. Getting tattooed is tiring no matter how many times you’ve done it. After your session is done, all you want to do is lay on the couch and drink something cold and refreshing. The last thing you want to do is make your way home on the dirty, loud subway train.

 

My clients

Free-hand “light through wing feathers” shoulder tattoo. Santiago, Chile. Designed and inked in 2016.

The individuals who reach out to me for a tattoo design tend to be creative and open-minded people. They have very clear feelings, motivations and sometimes even visions of their unborn ink, but they are not skilled in drawing, designing, mapping or tattooing images. In a way, they hire me as a messenger, to translate their internal desires into something visible to other people. This is why heart to heart conversation is such an important part of my work. I rarely tattoo ready designs that are brought to me. In my entire career as an independent tattooist, I may have done five or six designs that were brought to me. Even when I do portraits, I embellish them with something not present in the photograph.

A line work sleeve in progress, including a hidden cover job. Santiago, Chile. Designed and inked in 2017.

A free-hand custom designed tattoo sleeve. New York City, USA. Designed and inked in 2011.

During my ten year run as a tattooist, people often asked me what my style is. My response was always “My style is YOUR style.” You tell me what emotion you want your tattoo to evoke, how much detail you want in it, etc. and I will craft something to fit that mood. Obviously, my artistic hand has its own personality, my attention to detail, my lines, my manner of shading, but I never impose a single on my clients. I do make professional suggestions in terms of size, placement, and very rarely on the subject matter. There have also been clients whom I had to turn down for various reasons. Some wanted tattoos for all the wrong reasons. Some were clearly making a horrible mistake that I did not want to be responsible for. Some simply had ideas that did not interest me.

While in 2017 I retired from actually inking people, I still take on design drawing and mapping commissions from clients all over the world. In today’s world of internet communication, it is no longer necessary for me to meet my clients in bars and coffee shops. We can chat over Facebook or Skype, or e-mail. As a matter of fact, written-form of communication has its benefits. I can read my clients’ stories over and over again while working on their design. Today I have design clients in Brazil, Australia, United States, UK, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa, and Chile. After agreeing on the placement of their future tattoo, I ask my clients to send me photos of that part of their body so that I can map their design onto the photo, to help them envision what it will look like ink. Also for them to take that mapping to their tattooist so that they too can have a clear vision of the final result. Obviously, they also get a formatted and perfectly sized drawing that is print ready.

 

Here’s an example of a tattoo process with me

My first design proposal to Daniel. 2013.

Daniel met me in 2013 in Santiago, Chile. I was referred to him by a friend. When I sat down with him and his two buddies, equally interested in personalized tattoos, I had no idea that we were about to embark on a four-year inking journey, and a life long friendship as an added bonus. Unlike most of my clients whose tattoo ideas are based on feelings, emotions or memories, Daniel’s was mostly based on architecture and geometry. For him wanting ink wasn’t about commemorating a life event or honoring a dead relative. He simply liked this art form and wanted a shoulder piece that reflected his mindset, love of geometrical patterns, and architecture. He wanted his tattoo to feature elements of Escher’s art, but be tailored to suit his muscle tone, allowing the ink to move as he moves. I took that commission immediately and began drawing and mapping as soon as I got home.

The mapping of the design as I presented it to him to demonstrate size and placement. 2013.

As with my other clients, I first presented Daniel with the design for his shoulder and a projection mapping of how the design will wrap around his upper arm and shoulder. Once we agreed on the details we proceeded with two to three-hour tattoo sessions, meeting every three or four weeks. I completed the agreed upon the design in six sessions, but little did I know that this was just the beginning. Tattoos are addictive, and good tattoos continue growing on you like a healthy plant. As we spent more time together, Daniel learned enough about the art of tattoo to be his own artist were he to ever chose to do so. He knew techniques, mapping strategies, he even had favorite needle types and shading strategies. As we designed more of his left arm together and later continued onto his right arm, shoulder, and back, he was more in control of the design process than I was. I was just the delivery vehicle. His confidence level in design decision-making grew dramatically, and his eye for precision was very helpful to me in my drawing process. While we have somewhat different mindsets, we function on the same level of detail and precision. Sometimes, when we can’t agree on something, all we have to do is meet in person, and within minutes of bouncing ideas back and worth, a new and brilliant design is born. It is a very satisfying process. In this way, the rest of his tattoos literally grew around him, as he was growing and maturing as a tattoo wearer.

The fifth session on Daniel’s left arm. 2013/2014.

 

The sixth session on Daniel’s left arm. 2014.

 

Left arm design complete. Now with added elements nor present in the original design. A total of over 10 sessions. 2015.

 

Daniel’s right arm and part of back. Completed in over 10 sessions. 2017.

And so concludes my journey of inking, but not of design tailoring. If you have an unborn tattoo that you can’t quite visualize but that you know has to exist, shoot me a message here and maybe I am the person to bring your vision to life. Operating tattoo equipment is a technical skill. Any professional tattooist should be able to transfer any skillfully designed image onto human skin. Creating that design, however, is an art form.