Things&Ink

October 5, 2015

Music Interview: The Gospel Youth

You may recognise Sam Little from the Street Spotter section in The Horror Issue but he is more commonly known for playing bass and vocals in The Gospel Youth. We caught up with Sam ahead of their opening set at Hevy Festival this summer to talk about festivals, their latest EP and his favourite horror films.

So, are you nervous about being the first band of the weekend?

For all the festivals we’ve been to you always remember the first band on, so I guess we’ve got that to our advantage. At least we get to relax for the rest of the festival and have a beer!

Can we expect anything special for the opening set?

We’ve got a 25 minute set I think so we’ve got 4 songs we are playing from our latest EP ‘Empires‘ and were going to play ‘Kids‘ as well. We were going to sneak in an RnB cover but we haven’t had time unfortunately.

Your latest EP ‘Empires’ came out recently, how has it been received?

It’s actually been really good. It is so early into starting this band that we really didn’t expect anything. It’s always amazing to have nice things said about the stuff we are creating. It is weird because we’re not expecting it but everything has been really good.

After the success of ‘Empires’ is there an album in the works?

We’ve literally just starting writing the album, we were toying around with a couple of ideas. We’ve been thinking about maybe a line up jig around just so we can write the best album for us. I personally have a lot of things to write about and I want this album to be my heart and soul. I don’t want it just to be about girls and how much I hate work. I want it to be a little piece of me.

What about the rest of the year, any tour plans?

After festival season we have a tour with Verses and then a tour with Bad Ideas. Hopefully we will get to play as much as we can for the rest of the year.

In line with The Horror issue, what is your favourite horror film?

I think it would be one of the terrible ones like Sharknado or Sharktopus, stuff like that. Although you can’t compare them with classics like Nightmare on Elm Street. I think one of the best horrors I have seen recently was Kevin Smith’s Tusk. Seeing Justin Long as a walrus is the worst thing but it is just so good.

Sam’s Jekyll and Hyde were done by Ben Doran at the River City Collective. You can check out the rest of the Street Spots in The Horror Issue here.

October 5, 2015

Stunning make-up inspired by tattoos

Make-up artist Pompberry has created a collection of stunning make-up looks inspired by tattoo artists, including the likes of Emily Rose Murray and our illustration issue cover star, Danielle Rose.

Make-up inspired by Toni Donaire tattoo

Make-up inspired by Danielle Rose tattoo

Make-up inspired by Emily Rose Murray tattoo

Check out more of Pompberry’s make-up work on Instagram.

October 2, 2015October 5, 2015

Five Best Tattooed Film Characters

Our guest blogger is hobbyist film and TV series reviewer and writer Harry Casey-Woodward:

5 best film characters with tattoos

5) Name: Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow)
Played by: Johnny Depp
In: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003
Tattoo: A sparrow on his wrist

If you’re on the run (or sail rather) from the Royal Navy or the terrible clutches of the East India trading company, surely you wouldn’t get a certain avian tattoo on your forearm that would give a clue to your name?

4) Name: Leonard
Played by: Guy Pearce
In: Memento, 2000
Tattoo: Daily reminders all over his body

Here’s proof to your disapproving elders that tattoos can be useful. In a more interesting movie by Christopher Nolan than his Dark Knight films, Guy Pearce plays a chap searching for his wife’s murderer while suffering from short term memory loss. To combat this, he tattoos of all the things he needs to remember like clues, who he can trust and I guess daily reminders onto his body. However useful and painful the process, it’s best to keep those shopping lists short. I guess it’s quite impractical stripping off in a supermarket just to check you’ve got everything.

3) Name: Lisbeth Salander
Played by: Noomi Rapace
In: Män som hatar kvinnor or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009
Tattoo: A dragon on her back, in case you were wondering.

Lisbeth’s huge tattoo on her delicate frame is a sign of the power and strength she felt she lacked as grew up watching her father beat her mother. She is a world class hacker and all round computer goddess, but she is a troubled heroine. She is ruled legally incompetent as a child and lives under the care of a legal guardian, initially the kind hearted Holger Palmgren. When Holger suffers a stroke, he is replaced by Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson). Nils is a heinous man to say the least. He abuses his position to extort sexual favours from Lisbeth and eventually rapes her. She catches the entire incident on film and threatens to ruin him unless he gives her full control of her life – and uses a tattoo gun to write across his belly “Jag är ett sadistiskt svin och en våldtäktsman” – I am a sadistic pig and a rapist. Lisbeth has everything her tattoo embodies – triumph over adversity and strength from pain.

2) Name: Francis Dolarhyde aka the Tooth Fairy
Played by: Ralph Fiennes
In: Red Dragon, 2002
Tattoo: Also a dragon on his back.

Probably one of the greatest tattoo identity crises. In this prequel to Silence of the Lambs, Ralph Fiennes (who has an arsenal of terrifying performances including a Nazi, a gangster and a psychotic megalomaniac wizard) portrays a serial killer who has a William Blake Biblical dragon painting tattooed all over his back. This is not just because he likes it but because he wants to become it. In his most deluded scene, he displays his mighty sexy dragon body before a captured Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is clearly terrified at the amount of days, agony and expenditure that went into that ink.

1) Name: Harry Powell
Played by: Robert Mitchum
In: The Night of the Hunter, 1955
Tattoo: The words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on his knuckles.

For marrying a widow to get her ex-husband’s money, killing her then stalking her runaway children across the country, this devilish preacher surely wins for being the creepiest inked character in this classic film noir. His most sinister feature besides his eerie singing are the striking tattoos on his hands. One hand bears the word ‘love’, the other ‘hate’. He uses these to physically represent the struggle between the two emotions in a one-man arm wrestle. What they may actually signify is the duality of his personality, a criminal masquerading as a Christian, and perhaps in conservative 1950s America a man with tattoos was surely disreputable? Whatever the meaning behind the tattoos (if there is any, for they might be his tenth and meaning stopped mattering a while ago) and even though they are basic compared to the other tattoos in this list, they are instantly iconic and a bizarre and original character trait for 1950s cinema.

All images from IMDB

October 1, 2015

Pastel Paradise: Lemon Freckles

Toni or Lemon Freckles is a 30-year-old illustrator and blogger from Sheffield who lives in a pastel paradise of pink hair, her pugs and girl gang inspired drawings. We chatted to Toni to find out more about her fashion and artistic style, how she became a blogger and her tattoo collection…

When did you start blogging? How did you get into it? I originally started blogging around 10 years ago under a different name but Lemon Freckles is around five years old I think. At the time I was working full-time in mental health and in need of a creative outlet, blogging seemed like something I was able to do while working full-time, I didn’t really think anyone would ever read it.

What things can people expect to see on your blog? A mixture of things, I like being able to share what is happening in my world; from my latest cute find to things that inspire me. I want Lemon Freckles to be a positive place, full of colour and silliness.

Do you have a background in art? No, my degree is in mental health but I have always been a doodler. After 10 years of working in the mental health industry, I decided to take a step back and reflect on what I enjoy doing and last year I enrolled in a year long course in design. A few months ago I went self-employed full-time and it has been one of the best decisions I have made.

What inspires you? Colour and my ever so slight obsessive collecting of cute toys from my childhood. I want to bring back a little bit of that magic I left at the school gates sometime between the late 80s and early 90s. I am a firm believer that just because you’re an adult, it doesn’t mean you have to act like a grown up.

What things to do you like to draw? The more colour the better in my eyes. I love doodling toys and making characters out of everyday objects.

What medium do you use? Pen and paper, Illustrator, whatever is to hand.

How would you describe your style, both in art and fashion? I think they are both the same, eclectic. It’s all in the detail, from the Polly Pocket earrings to the denim jacket covered in patches, the more cute the better!

Can you tell us a little bit about your tattoos? Of course! I actually only got my first tattoo last year, which was a pug (a forever reminder of my two furry pug babies, Doug and Lola) and since then I have got three more; a My Little Pony, a Lefton, Miss Priss Kitty tea pot and a sewing related one. Sam Whitehead of Blind Eye Tattoo Company in Leeds has done all of mine and also has the same love of cuteness that I do, which makes her wonderful to work with.

Do you think they have to have meanings? Nothing deep and meaningful I’m afraid. I get tattoos of things I love, things that make me happy and of course, the more colour the better.

Do you have any future tattoo plans? I’ve got one later this month actually, a Roly-Poly doll, which will be going on my arm. I’m wanting to get my full arm covered in cuteness over the next year, much like my style, eclectic and cute.

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015

The Art of Sarah Howell

Australian artist, illustrator and textile designer Sarah Howell has created mixed media art pieces for over two decades. We love the way she uses photographs, illustrations and work sourced from other artists to create surreal and trippy pieces. Sarah has created campaigns for brands including Topshop, Diet Coke and Nokia.

In an interview with No Cure magazine Sarah explains that: