The Tattar

My dad occasionally makes custom guitars, and he recently gave me two Stratocaster bodies to design. I’ve started working on the first one, which is going to be a tattooed guitar body, going along the theme of rock n' roll. I mean, really, what’s rock n’ roll without sex, drugs, and a butt-load of tattoos?

Here's a picture of one of the Stratocaster bodies. I'll have to trace them a little bit later; I'm definitely happy to have the actual bodies so I know the scale I'm working with. I also need to figure out how big the pick guard will be and how much of the body it will cover.

I made out some sketches to give me some idea of placement. The one thing I love about tattoos is the randomness of it, there's something appealing to the sporadic arrangement of multiple tattoos. Part of my concept is to draw first and arrange later to create the affect, but there are certain elements I want in specific places so I need to save those areas.

Here's one of my first tattoo designs. I'm going to draw on different types of paper and add lots of texture to give them a worn look. I want to see the variations in hand and line weight to emphasize age and a range of artists, so some may have bleeding, fading colors and lines, et cetera.

I'm really looking forward to this. Rarely do I see my own work in a physical, tangible form, let alone applied to something functional, and it will be a unique experience to actually hold my artwork once it's finished. Right now I'm not worrying about the hard part (getting the prints on the guitar), but I'm sure that will be a whole problem in itself.