This tattoo was one of the first "complex" color tattoos I had done. Keep in mind I had started tattooing in 2006 and wasn't more than a year or so out of my apprenticeship for this piece.Done about three years ago now (2008), it was, at the time, the absolute best work I had done, and a nice benchmark to keep up with. still one of my all time favorites, as I am a fan of the GOON comics by Eric Powell.
---- If you want a better look at the pics, click on them, they get a little bigger, but thats all you get. you want a closer look than that, you'll have to call Lacy.
So Stage on of the design was to put together a few elements that Lacy wanted in particular. The Goon image and Frankie (Goon's sidekick) were provided by Lacy, The Goon originally by Mr Powell, and the Frankie done by a friend of Lacy's I believe. I added the zombies from a cover of a Goon comic, just to keep things consistent (Lacy wanted some other element, but gave me a bit of license on exactly what). Once we had the composition figured out (as I didn't have to design or create anything for this) we move on to stage two...
...the outline. I'm not sure anymore how long the outline took (Though I'm sure Lacy could tell you) but it was one of the first outlines I included grey lines (in Goons shirt and the rays in the background). But I was already comfortable with working different line thickness' into the overall piece for definition. Once this healed we started the shading....
A pretty straight forward process, and all the major areas were marked out in the outline, so the shading wasn't too hard as far as I remember. At this point I had already done a good amount of black and grey work, so this wasn't a big deal at all. Still, I love the blacks in the Goons boots.
So then stage four was the main coloring. I focused on the characters as the color choices were pretty straightforward, and for the most part supplied by the existing reference from the comics. Interpreting the skin tones was a trick, my first time having to do that really, and the Goons shirt with those grey lines turned out wicked, i was convinced at that method from then, and started to get into stuff like
Anil Gupta's work that has led me to some of the more current stuff I do with no hard lines. Still no where near the skill of Anil, but that guy's been at it 30 years, so I've heard. So with the character elements colored we moved on to the background and finishing this thing!
The tattoo originally was intended to have an explosive feel, something really dynamic and "coming at you" kind of comic flair. so we couldn't do without the Michael Bay explosion background kit. ha! really, the hot colors of the background are what completed the piece, pushing the generally cooler colors of the foreground forward, framing the piece overall and creating a strong sense of action. I especially liked the the flare from Frankie's tommygun reflecting of of Frankie, this seemed to put him behind Goon just a touch, which to me was just right.
There it is, the Goon Tattoo on Lacy from start to finish. After we completed the piece, Lacy sent a pic to Eric Powell where he gave a it thumbs up. If you Google "Goon tattoo" this piece comes up first. so I suppose there is something kinda cool about that.
Thanks all. This was fun, and I shall do it again next week, can't think of who is next yet, but whatever, it all work out.
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