Did I mention that at my Nerdlepoint booth at the West Chester Festival of the Arts succeeded in selling exactly ZERO hand-painted needlepoint canvases encoded with unique 2D barcodes controlled by a secret password included in the kit? For the love of god, how did this product not find its audience?

I did that booth as a lark, but still, it smarts a LITTLE bit not have sold a single one. I put the remaining inventory (which is all of it) up on for sale on Etsy, and I’m going to refine my role as a carnie. No more machine-readable hand-embroidery for me, man: that fringe-market stuff is for the birds. No, this time I’m going RIGHT FOR THE JUGULAR. With temporary tattoos.

More specifically, airbrush tattoos. To be precise, using an airbrush rig that I’ve powered with a tank of compressed nitrogen. And just to be complete, here, I’ll mention that I’m going to be delivering glitter paint using this rig. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that from noon to four PM at West Chester’s South Walnut Street Block Party, you can find me, Matt, and my sidecar, offering for sale for a low, reasonable price:

SIDECAR-RIGGED, NITRO-POWERED MAGIC AIRBRUSH GLITTER TATTOOS.

Let me show you the progress I’ve made so far. Pictured below are the sidecar rig (in Guerilla Drive-In mode; I’m setting up a separate table module for the tattoo rig) and the nitrogen-powered airbrush set:

 

Now for the designs: Matt put together three pieces of classic tattoo flash: A sailor’s fluked anchor, the ubiquitous punk “Black Flag” tattoo, and a magical unicorn with a flowing mane and stars. I sent the Illustrator files to family friend and awesome guy Dave Moroz-Henry of Barking Dog Signs. Dave used a vinyl plotter to cut stencils into Oracal 631, which is sticky sign vinyl with a light, water-based adhesive (unlike most sign vinyl, which is meant for permanent sticking to, say, a truck door.)

Here’s Dave “weeding” the prototype stencils, and Kate modeling a Black Flag stencil, through which the airbrush shoots the color:

 

Okay, NOW: with glitter paint delivered through the airbrush (or separately via a “poof” bottle, more about that later”, I’ll be able to create the following AWESOME GLITTERY DESIGNS, visualized below. Click on the unicorn to see the actual by-god glitter animation on Flickr!

  

YES, America! You know you want gold-colored MAGICAL GLITTERY UNICORN TATTOOS! YES, you gen-Y kiddies and sarcastic millenials, steeped in ironic duality! You KNOW you want to sport a Black Flag tattoo, traditional passport to punk legitimacy, except made SCORNFULLY ABSURD with the MySpace Glitter treatment! I will SELL you these tattoos, carefully and conscientiously applied using non-greenhouse gases, all with a background of hand-selected hair-metal music for an optimum carnie experience! With God as my witness, I WILL FINALLY BREAK EVEN ON A HOBBY PROJECT!!!

Well, maybe breaking even is a bit much to ask, given that it’s gonna rain. But if you want to come by on Saturday, Matt and I can sell you a GREAT glittery sailor’s anchor!

PS. Yes, the glittery unicorn tattoos really are magic, and I am prepared to prove it. See you there!