Gossamer Rozen: Tattoos & Pixel Art
Artist & designer Gossamer Rozen talks about what’s next for their tattoo process.
As many of you know, tattooing was my gateway to becoming an independent, full-time artist. Since 2019, I’m lucky enough to have grown a community of folks who collect and appreciate my tattoos as permanent, wearable art.
My tattoos are unique in that they are all completed by hand, without a mechanical tattoo machine. I simply poke each mark with the same needle you’d use on a rotary machine, except my hand does all the work! This technique is sometimes called “handpoke” or “stick and poke” and both names are used interchangeably.
This mark making process creates a softer, granular tattoo that heals quicker than most machine tattoos, even when large areas of color or black work are involved. It also creates a meditative experience for both myself and the client, since the process is quiet, lacks the vibrations of a machine, and has a rhythmic beat as I poke each tiny dot.
So not only do I bring my unique drawing style — which is inspired by Japanese and American traditional tattoos, Korean Minhwa folk art, textiles from around the world, and more — but I also am known as one of the few tattooers who have refined hand poke (or stick and poke) technique and can do it quickly and with precision & care.
TATTOOS & PIXEL ART
Tattooing remains one of my main gigs, alongside new explorations of fine art and textiles which mainly involve my machine knitting. The Tigerbob brand, which I established in May 2022, helps bridge the gap between my hand drawn visual language and my textile work, which started out more abstract. I established a pixel version of my familiar tiger drawing to help expand my visual language across multiple mediums, especially digital art and textile charts.
The media of textile follows a grid of squares — that’s why I’ve been pushing hard into pixel art. A cloth is not a flat surface like a computer screen, though. Watching how my pixel artwork drapes on the body as a knit reminds me of how tattoos stretch, squish, and warp as the skin on the body moves.
Therefore, it’s pertinent for me to explore tattooing my pixel art directly on the body. I’m going to explore this in a number of ways that support & enhance my familiar and well-loved illustration work, which I will continue to offer.
DESIGNS & EXPECTATIONS
Most pixel tattoos I know of are interpretations of retro game art and other designs from popular culture. What makes my pixel tattoos unique is that I will tattoo only my own pixel art that I have designed myself.
I designed the Tigerbob pixel tiger in 2022 along with a number of smaller designs similar to my hand drawn flash, like cute animals, fruits, and vegetables. I’ve been playing with these designs over the past two years in my knitted work. Simplifying my drawing style to accommodate ink on skin is one of the ways I was able to reinterpret my work as pixel art — legibility across multiple scales (sizes) is key in both tattoo and textile design.
I will begin offering small pixel art designs in black and gray, slowly scaling up size, color, and complexity as I learn how the square units heal on the body. I’m excited to see the look of these fuzzy, imperfect squares over time… it reminds me of my graph paper pixel sketches, and the soft distortion of each knitted “v” shape stitch made in super soft cashmere.
I want to retain my body of work with my hand drawn style — there is so much more to explore here and I’ve only scratched the surface. So to keep things in order, I’m partnering with Blackdot and Co:Create Ink on all my pixel art tattoo offerings.
PRECISION & CRAFT: BLACKDOT
Blackdot, a new company based in Austin, Texas, has produced a new patented technology designed to create a tattoo with sublime accuracy. In swift contrast to the familiar tattoo machine, which moves the needle up and down while the user makes sweeping movements to insert the ink into the skin, the Blackdot device is essentially a “giant handpoke machine.”
How does that work? Instead of me holding one needle and poking in one dot at a time, the Blackdot device has numerous tiny needles that poke the design into skin at the exact depth necessary to complete the image. It’s truly the first kind of “tattoo machine” that can mimic a very old method of tattooing.
Joel Pennington, Blackdot’s founder and CEO, discovered myself and my work back in late 2023 and we’ve spent a lot of time discussing how the Blackdot machine provides a lot of historical context to the world of tattooing. For the first time ever, there’s a machine that can tattoo similar to the way that I tattoo.
In particular this machine is an important way to historically look at mark making on skin. Every method was done by hand; now we have a machine that can be as precise as a person poking one dot at a time. It’s an interesting intersection of technology, culture, and history.
So for those of you who are lucky enough to live near or be able to travel to Austin, Texas, you can soon choose to receive the pixel Tigerbob head as a tattoo from the Blackdot device. It’s impressive to me how accurate this device can translate the tiny pixel squares. I’m excited to see how these machine-poked Tigerbobs soften and age over time — that’s the true test to fully understand the capabilities of this technology.
A NEW BODY OF WORK: CO:CREATE
I’m not going to sit by and let the Blackdot machine do all the exploration for me! I’m opening books for me to tattoo a small selection of simple pixel art I have designed myself. All my new pixel art designs will be offered through my partnership with the Co:create platform, a new, curated marketplace of tattoo artists.
An invite-only platform, Co:Create is helping artists and clients find the right match for their projects. Clients can reach out to the Co:Create team and receive expert guidance to match a client’s idea with the right artist; meanwhile, tattoo artists are able to curate their offerings with tools that help with scheduling, payments, and more.
Tara Fung, Co:Create’s cofounder and CEO, discovered my work earlier this year and I was introduced as an exclusive artist on the platform in August. It’s been great to get to know the team and get some photo and video content of my tattoo process and Tigerbob Store, where I perform all my tattoos.
I’m excited to be a part of this new platform and a clean slate here allows me to talk about the digital and physical connections of my pixel art in my tattoos and other mediums. I’ll continue to take regular bookings for my hand-drawn artwork with my email list; all pixel art tattoo work I tattoo myself will be for sale exclusively on Co:Create!
PROCESS IS PERTINENT
I again reiterate that I consider myself a process oriented artist. Although the look and feel of the finished artwork is important, the mediums I work in are chosen based on their meditative qualities rather than their result. Tigerbob as a motif and a brand helps unify the multiple art mediums I love to work with — pixel art, illustrations, textiles and apparel, tattoos, and sculptures — under this recognizable tiger head.
I really appreciate the support I’ve received while trying all sorts of new media and direction in my work. Here is a list of the exact tattoo services that I am opening books for.
Pixel Art Tattoo Designs
- Friday the 13th pixel art tattoos — To be scheduled October-December 2024. Available Exclusively on Co:Create
- Tigerbob pixel tiger head tattooed by Blackdot’s device in Austin, Texas — Available soon
Hand-Drawn Tattoo Designs
- Custom tattoo books opening next week — To be scheduled November 2024-February 2025. Sign up for my newsletter to receive the booking link!
- Pre-drawn flash tattoo books opening in about two weeks — To be scheduled October 2024-January 2025. Sign up for my newsletter to receive the booking link!
And that’s it! I’m looking forward to exploring these tattoo offerings and I can’t wait to collaborate on these works with you.