PAULA's PEOPLE GUEST SPOT: GAYLE COPPER, TATTOO ARTIST AND BOOK ILLUSTRATOR

Fabulous body artist and book illustrator Gayle worked with me on my first novel Sons of the Wolf and has been working really hard on the illustration for the cover of the sequel, The Wolf Banner. Thanks Gayle for allowing me to interview you on my blog. Gayle is a good friend of mine and we met through our mutual love of historical re-enactment. apart from being an amazingly talented artist, she's pretty deadly with a 9ft spear and has killed me many a time on the battle field.

So Gayle, how long have you been involved in re-enactment? On and off for around twenty years re-enacting different time periods. I much prefer the Dark Ages though.
Do you find that re-enacting helps you in your work as an artist? Everything helps being an artist.I really enjoy this time period so working with you on your cover has been great fun.
Apart from your career and re-enactment, you have lots of hobbies. Can you tell us about some of them? I enjoy so many things there is never enough time (or paper) for them. I spend time boxing and target rifle shooting, off roading and camping.There are also so many hobbies within re-enactment.

You're mum to a gorgeous little boy. With your busy schedule, how do you fit everything in? I'm not really sure, I think great support from my family and friends.He joins in with most of my hobbies, and enjoys them as much as i do.
Can you tell us about Steel Point and what makes it different from other Tattoo Parlours? At Steel Point we pride ourselves on
being friendly and professional and can cater for every style, we enjoy designing custom pieces. We excel in good work and customer care, it's a great environment for us and the customers and the atmosphere makes it a pleasure to come in every day.

Before and after cover-up

What is the funniest/interesting piece of artwork you've ever had to do? I once did a roast chicken on a girl's bum, full colour with steam and all.  
What's your favourite style? Can we see some images? All styles are fun to do, colour, black and grey. I love a challenge, I especially love cover-ups and repair work. also as a qualified paramedical tattoo artist I do a lot of cosmetic work as well. The picture right is of a cover up I've recently done.
You have a great team working for you at Steel Point, can you tell us about them? They are really the best, Mark, Nadz and York are amazing artists, Mark is our traditional and flash artist and also our piercer. Nadz is great for fantasy work and York totally owns script work and all writing styles. Anna and Trevor keep it all together, they are our awesome trainees and assistant piercers. They really couldn't be a better team!

What inspires you when you are working on the illustrations for my novel? Luckily I have all the benefit of the photos from all the Regia events and a love of the period. I think even you are in one of the pictures in kit, though you wouldn't know it unless I pointed it out to you?A lot of the drawings are inspired by actual people and places. I have even asked friends to model for inspiration. It's a lot of fun and I look forward to doing more.

It's been great having you work on them, I couldn't ask for a more talented illustrator! One more thing, what sort of books do you like to read? Sci-fi and fantasy, I really enjoyed your book.

The Steel Point team

Steelpoint are based in Croydon, South London. To learn more about Gayle and her teams’ work at Steel Point, visit http://www.steelpointtattoos.co.uk  and check out the fabulous website there.