BLACK WIDOW'S WEB THE MAXING OF- A FAKE TATTOO- COJO
Issue no.71 November 2003 Maxim - Jessica Alba
When Maxim came to me with the concept for this feature they were wondering if I had ever done any tattoo flash and if I'd be able to do a piece reminiscent of the Cali style of tattooing.
I had never done a tattoo before (except for a tramp stamp I had drawn for one of my exes) but the project seemed like fun. It was for a legitimate news article about the Pelican Bay State Prison, and how this group of three convicts, Nuestra Familia were able to run gangs, run drugs, commit murder, within the prison, and on the outside, all while incarcerated. They gave me a bunch of ideas of what would be in the piece and that it should be big enough to fit on a back.
So basically they wanted the three heads of the three people in the story stacked Mt.Rushmore style, then an iguana with his tail wrapped around them. They also wanted a dead guy bleading from his head, cell bars, a needle, some grave stones, the Nuestra Familia logo, and have all of it bound by a circular razorwire with the words Pelican Bay hovering just above it all.
Next they asked me to knock out a bunch of vector versions of Aryan and Nazi and Mexican Mafia gang tattoos to suppliment the feature in the secondary spreads. I had to turn the whole job around in a few days. I got the linework done on a Sunday and e-mailed it that night. Noon on Monday the photographer in Cali e-mailed me back in New York with the photo at the top of this page. They had printed out the line art and somehow had drawn it onto the back of the male model with a sharpie and photographed him just hours after I had finished the piece. Technology amazes me sometimes.
They tinkered with the colors before they went to print and chose a different picture from the shoot, but it printed great. I was kind of pissed that they forgot to give me a credit line for the art, but that happens from time to time.
POST RATED: Maxim, Back Issue, Jessica Alba, Pelican Bay Art, Black Widow's Web, Maxim Artist, Tattoos, Article, Cojo Art Juggernaut, Cojoart.com, Artsucks.com
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