THE CAPTIVE DESPOT is the result of my rather timid fascination with tattoos. I am probably too squeamish about both pain and permanence to ever get even the smallest tattoo myself, but I do admire intricate patterns and sophisticated images on other bodies, particularly if the bodies in question are shapely ones. Part of the admiration is sheer awe for the zealous sense of commitment it takes to sport a tattoo, especially one that covers a lot of flesh.
I find "sleeves" particularly compelling. Sleeves, if I understand the terminology correctly, are patterns or integrated arrangements of tattoos that cover the arms. I like this most when the rest of the torso is left un-tattooed. In a gay bar rag somewhere I once found a picture of a shirtless pinup hunk thus adorned. The image made me starry-eyed; I immediately pasted it into my sketch book.
Aspiring to embody in the Chameleon the things I most admire, I began to contemplate how I might acquire a pair of sleeves, and similar coverage for my legs, without enduring the pain or committing to the permanence of real tattoos. After considering several alternatives, I decided that the simplest approach would be to have someone paint me. So I called up my artist friend Margie, who I've known since high school. (Her pictures of me from our college years can be seen at Biography). She agreed to the assignment, and in my basement one August afternoon between lunch and dinner she covered my arms and legs with the spirals, zigzags, stripes, and triangles that you see in the pictures. The medium was face paint, the kind used on kids at fairs (I don't recommend it; it started to flake very soon after Margie put it on.) Margie also helped me shape my newest mohawk variation. I think she did a great job on the body and the hair.
Though I was very focussed on the one outward trait of painted arms and legs, I had only a vague grasp of who the character would be. I had begun to think of the painting more as war paint than tattoo, and made two costumes that I thought would show it off to advantage by exposing my legs and arms. One was something that started out as a kind of armor but which ended up as fetish wear (for more on this see Lord of Vinyl). The other was the black robe that you see in the pictures.
The poses that I struck to show off the paint have a quality simultaneously yielding and defiant. They seemed to express a character who is ruthless and despotic, yet who reveals an admirable nobility when he becomes a victim himself. Hence the name, Captive Despot.
Images created August 24, 1998
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