Skullbot!

On Friday I rocked up to a house party hosted by Dan Boaden of Synthdromes fame; though there was a terrible bargain to be made at the door. Entry into the dark, damp, womb-like enclosure and the harmonious howling of electro dnb music it contained cost you the hefty price of your soul.

And by soul I mean the ethereal spark within us that leads to art and higher understanding - or rather, if you don’t believe in that stuff - creativity. In other words, you had to bring a house decoration. I should also note, out of politeness’ sake, that his house is neither damp nor dark. It’s very lovely actually.

I decided to do a painting based on this sketch:

The idea being that it’s some sort of... robot, with a... skull... and vinyl. So I sketched it up on a large piece of hardboard, and after pondering whether or not to simply go over it in black pen, I decided to go all the way and paint it in acrylic. At this point I should note that I’m not actually any good with acrylic, as rigorous testing beforehand proved. But, out of laziness and foolish optimism, I decided to just attack it with the brush anyway and hope everything went well.

In short: it did. By being careful and trying really hard I managed to make it look suitably shiny and robot-like. You can see some of the stages above. The finished piece is here:

And I’m pretty proud of it. I’m not sure what it represents exactly – perhaps it demonstrates how Dan’s brain could be salvaged after his death and combined into some crazy four-armed DJ machine, trapped eternally in a cycle of swapping tunes and dropping beats?

Anyway, they took the bait and I was let into the party (though I was pretty worried they’d find fault with the shading and throw me out on my ass). It turned out to be super awesome. Highlights have to include Mitchell's Non-gay Lads Bike Room, described in the invite as being a place to hang out, “talk about weights, bikes and paxing a man with the side of a mic”, though in actuality it turned out to be an empty room with horrendous porn plastered up and down every wall. Definitely a strong par. The DJ lineup they had in the main room was absolutely epic too – in addition to Dan B and Ed Key, fellow DJs took to the set and really tore the place up. Here’s a picture of the main room:

You can see me in the bottom left with my hood up, looking monged off my face. I also managed to nab one of those “Junk” posters, which my bedroom wall is very happy about. The artwork’s done by Ed’s brother, and I really love it. The mix of grotesque inking and clear colours really works well..

Alright, that’s enough from me. x