Saturday, December 27, 2008

It Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin Or It Gets The Hose Again






In November, after I listed my new Richard Armitage/Guy of Gisborne Objects of Worship, I received a query from a lovely fille in Paris asking if I could make a series of similar items for the Hannibal Lecter Canon. My customer is a huge fan of this character, has read the books and seen all the films and had very specific desires as far as what she wanted illustrated.

I had to think about this for a bit as some of this material is a bit grisly, but I do like this series, so I said yes. It ended up being five widgets: Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, two for Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising. The last two films are difficult to watch at times as the visuals and implied horrors are really, um, over the top and not for tender sensibilities. I had seen them all and even had some in my video library so it was easy to brush up on them.

The process involves making and printing graphics sized to the bamboo tiles (both sides), applying them, wiring them, choosing the hardware and charms; even though I've made a number of them by now, it still takes a lot of time and thought. Searching out specific charms is the most fun for me, but I do also very much enjoy composing the graphics. My customer provided all of the images but one, which I re-sized and adapted and she chose lines of text that were important to her for the "back" side of the tile.

It took about a month to put these together, allowing for delivery of new charms in addition to what I had or made to order.

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