Talisman Tattoo on Matt Dunham

Talisman Tattoo on Matt Dunham by Chris Chase

I did a number of sketches for Dunham's shoulder. All of them have the same theme, just slight changes that Matt wanted. The first one depicts a demon rather than a gargoyle and he's perched on a tortise rather than the rock wall. Dunham's girlfriend at the time was into turtles, so I used a turtle to represent the support that she gave him... come to find out she didn't give that much support. Strangely enough, he had a problem with the demon as a representation of himself. I found it kind of ironic, but I do what he says. The first three sketches were all in my sketchbook. For the final drawing, I pulled out a piece of bristol board. I'll be inking the finished drawing and giving it to Matt when I have time.

Since the final tattoo has to go on a curved body part, and one that moves no less, I had to sketch most of the drawing freehand directly on his skin. The gargoyle was stenciled, but everything else was freehanded. I met with him once prior to the big day to practice the sketch, so I actually sketched it on his skin twice. The first picture is from that first sketch session. The other three are the sketch and initial outline from the big day.

The second session, where I finished the rest of the outline, I didn't get any pictures from. That's ok, because when I came in for the third session, Mathew had been on a drinking binge and didn't tell me. Although he was no longer drunk, his blood was too thin and I kept trying to do things to keep him from bleeding, but it just wasn't working, so I shaded one eye and had to quit. Bad, Mathew, bad!

During the fourth session, I really got into some shading. The entire upper portion of the skull got hit as well as the teeth and all the stones of the armband.

Mathew was very sore when I was finished with him. Serves him right, I had to make up lost time from the last session!

During the fifth session, I hit both wings and touched on the skull again. Both wings came out very nice. One nice feature is that when Matt lifts and lowers his arm, the wings flap.

The Sixth session had me going over just about the entire tattoo. I worked the fingers of the wings, the skull shading, a touch-up of the eye sockets, the gumline, the entire lower jaw, the gargoyle, and the spine.

So I touched on just about everything. I really felt kind of sorry for Mathew, but now the tattoo is almost finished.

These are the healed pictures from the last session. All I have left is to touch up a couple minor spots and put the kanji in the teeth.

Here are the final pictures. The kanji used in the molars of the teeth are the seven deadly sins, each symbol is smaller than my pinky nail. It was a very short session and I'm pleased with the final product. There are things that I would have liked to do differently, but Dunham was happy with it, so I won't complain too loudly. Oh, and get this, no sooner had I taken the final pictures and put some lotion on him than he was talking about what he wanted next, and next, and next... and complaining about me going to Australia! I tell ya, some guys are just gluttons for punishment!

So no sooner than I return to the States than Dunham is calling me up begging for more ink. When he first asked me to complete the sleeve, I started thinking about doing a castle with a moon and maybe some trees... but once I got in front of the artwork, the skin just spoke to me. I kept telling it to shut up, but it wouldn't listen. Kind of like the the leprechan by the playground that tells me to burn things. Rather than a castle scene, I drew a pretty butterfly. He didn't like that so I freehanded a sort of vortex with ghostly skulls in it. I had the stone of the foundation being ripped away by chaos and the stones morphing into skulls as well. All of this is on the back of his arm lending more strength to the concept that the chaos is behind him and that he is building a new life on top of it. Finished November 20, 2006
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