To add a little spice to life, we fancied ourselves a challenge here at Monumental Ink.
Ding!
Let’s have 5 tattoo artists do a full back piece on 1 brave man in just 2 days!
We needed this collaboration piece to be achievable within two days, and we needed to create a design which could seamlessly incorporate each artist's individual styles.
We needed a client who could take the pain, we needed to find a way to work together without getting in each other’s way, and we needed to plan and strategise who would be where and when.
In every way, we had to work together, and I am pleased to say we did brilliantly!
I feel that the whole process brought us together as a team in a way I could have never imagined.
We also wanted to film this process to form a special feature episode of our reality TV show Monumental TV on YouTube.
This project aired in series 2 in late summer 2022.
We wanted to gain as much exposure as possible for the artists and for the brand, so we also had to consider lining up local media coverage and documenting as much footage as possible for social media.
We had a few meetings together to discuss ideas for the design, and then we got busy creating. We had to consider the client's taste, and we also had to consider the different levels of experience the artists had so we could plan who was going to do which parts.
The 5 different styles consisted of black and grey, realism, line work, dot work, and stipple shading. The overall theme was Japanese, with the 3 main elements being a Hannya mask, a tiger, and a Japanese samurai katana sword. These parts would be framed with some nice Japanese-style flowers, stipple-shaded with dot work around the outside to bind it all together nicely.
The client had an old tattoo down his spine which posed another challenge, as he wanted that covered up.
The sword would be the artwork to cover the existing tattoo, and the sword would form the main part in which everything else would either overlap or underlap from, to merge the whole piece together as one cohesive piece of artwork.
Would he be able to take the pain? Would someone come down with COVID-19? Would the client get cold feet and change his mind? Would we be able to get it all done in just 2 days?
With so many factors that could sabotage the day and us boldly announcing our intentions publicly on social media, anxiety and tension were building.
Sadly, two weeks before the event was set to take place, one of the artists had to pull out due to some heartbreaking news about his newborn son.
Another artist kindly stepped in and we decided to continue the event as planned, but dedicated to Robert.
The day soon came around and it was awesome!
We managed to get the whole piece finished in the two days and we had so much fun.
We learnt to work together very quickly, understanding who was best to go where, etc.
I am very proud of the level of quality we managed given the tight working circumstances and time constraints.
We all learnt a lot through this experience and we are already considering the next full back piece challenge!
It is a memory we will remember forever, and we love looking back at the video of the whole process with the release of series 2 on our YouTube channel Monumental Ink.
The 5 artists involved in this piece were Aaron, Shell, Jazmine, Alice, and Ben.
