Jee Sayalero was born in Venezuela in 1975. He began focusing on tattoo design as a profession in 2002, drawing inspiration from modern art forms such as comic books, cartoons and animated films. Because of these influences on his tattoo design style, Sayalero’s tattoos have large areas of color, eye-catching movement and a sense of humor.
New School Cartoon Tattoos
“New school” is term given to many styles of modern tattoo art. Many new school tattoo artists are heavily influenced by the emerging art form of pop surrealism, a style that combines the realistic rendering of surrealism with cartoonish characters. The style of Sayalero’s tattoo designs swing in the opposite direction to pop surrealism with their 2-dimemsional, cartoonish and graffiti-like effect.
A full back tattoo by Jee Sayalero of a pin up pirate girl in a new school style. Pin up girls are a classic subject for tattoo designs but Sayalero has given this sexy redhead a new school twist by turning her into a busty caricature of traditional pin up girls. [source]
Many of Jee Sayalero’s tattoo designs have a vibrant sense of movement. His use of perspective creates depth within his scenes that allows each character room to stretch their personalities within the limited space of a tattoo design. Instead of relying on two dimensional space, Sayalero creates space in his tattoos by using the third dimension of depth. This allows for a scene filled with multiple characters and objects that flesh out the symbolism of each tattoo.
By layering elements in his designs, Jee Sayalero creates a sense of depth in a limited amount of space. Characters in the foreground stand out because of their strong outlines, while background objects appear distant because of their more subtle outlines. [source]
Asian subject matter finds its way into many of Jee Sayalero’s tattoo designs. Sometimes an entire scene has an Asian influence, while other tattoos show Western and Eastern elements flirting and cavorting in an interesting mix of subjects and symbols. Designs of koi fish, lotus flowers and Asian deities are often tattooed in traditional Asian styles but with Jee Sayalero’s stylized take on these subjects, Asian symbolism emerges from traditional styles into a purely modern, new school art form.
The Hindu elephant god Ganesh takes on a new form in this new school tattoo by Jee Sayalero. Although the symbolic objects displayed with the deity are Ganesh’s traditional religious items, the design is far from traditional; boasting a graffiti or comic book style use of perspective and depth. [source] Learn more about Ganesh as a tattoo subject in Tattoos of the God Ganesh Create a Skin Religion
Jee Sayalero’s Tattoo Design Style
Jee Sayalero has a playful use of color in his tattoo designs, adding to the new school effect of his tattoos. The majority of Sayalero’s tattoos burst with color and contrast, adding to the sense of depth and space in the design. Important objects in the scene, often displayed in the foreground, are highlighted with rich palettes, while objects that are less symbolic, less important or are simply in the distance are tatooed with paler, less assuming palettes. This use of color defines which areas of the tattoo are important, drawing the viewer’s eye to these areas of the design.
Jee Sayalero has used bright yellow tattoo ink to draw the viewer’s eye to the jellyfish in the foreground, giving it more importance in the design than the smaller creature in the background. Not only is the design style new school, but Sayalero’s interpretation of the jellyfish is also based on new school subject matter – the jellyfish appear to have human skulls beneath their translucent flesh, an idea that would fit right into a fantasy story or comic book world. [source]
Contrast is often used in tattoos to accentuate areas of the design. Sometimes lighter inks are offset by darker inks to create an eye-catching contrast, but the same effect can be achieved by using contrasting colors. Warm colors stand out against cooler colors, as seen in the tattoo design below. Using color contrast with a strong silhouette allows the tattoo to be readable from a distance instead of appearing as a mash of confusing color and shapes.
Sayalero has used warm yellow tattoo ink to make this cuttlefish stand out against a cool blue background. This tattoo is an excellent example of how color contrast is used in both tattoo designs and comic book designs. Comic style art allows the artist to use bold areas of color while creating texture with outlines and subtle shades of color. This gives the subject the appearance of having a 2-dimensional surface in a 3-dimensional realm, an effect that looks fantastic in tattoo designs. [source]
New school tattoo designs often incorporate a sense of humor, inspired by the humorous elements found in modern media. Serious subjects such as death are sometimes displayed in a funny way, as seen in the tattoo below. Traditional tattoos often took on a fairly serious, rigid form, expressing serious and rigid ideas about the world. Many new school tattoo artists pride themselves on approaching tattoo subjects in a different way; making serious subjects humorous or funny subjects seem difficult or angry. New School tattoos often challenge our beliefs about a certain subject, transforming not only how that idea is displayed in tattoo designs, but how we think about those subjects.
This new school tattoo design by Jee Sayalero takes death and mortality and displays them in a humorous way. Skeletons are a tattoo symbol of death and human mortality while an hourglass is often used to represent time, eternity and mortality. Both of these symbols are often displayed in tattoos in a serious manner, but Sayalero has used his new school style to create a caricature of Death, showing him riding the hourglass while yelling like a kid on a rollercoaster. The design challenges the viewer by displaying death not as a negative subject but as something to look forward to; a cheerful reaper coming to fetch a soul after it has completed a full and happy life. [source]
Visit Jee Sayalero’s website or facebook page to find out more about this artist. To see some of this artist’s tattoo sketches, take a look at New School Tattoo Sketches by Jee Sayalero on Mayhem and Muse.
