Post #373967 by tobunga on Tue, Apr 15, 2008 10:31 PM

Aloha everybody!

After some prodding by Tikishark, I got my act together, registered on the site, and am finally confidant enough to bare my tiki art to the denizens of Tiki Central.

Brad had suggested I explore the world of tiki when we attended to the Tikis and Terrors show at Bahooka a while back. The idea simmered in the back of my mind for a while, but although I had an appreciation for tiki culture, I didn't feel I had a real passion for it (hoo boy, did that ever change... but, I'm getting ahead of myself) and anything I would attempt would be kinda like faking it.

I don't remember how it occurred to me, but I started thinking about incorporating stuff about which I was passionate into the tiki world. Well, I thought, I like Godzilla and all his monster buddies... how about Godzilla as a tiki?

So from there, I created my very first tiki painting TIKIZILLA (acrylic on canvas 20" x 24"), in July of 2007.

Wow, I thought to myself. That was fun! Then I thought, this piece needs a companion ( I like to work in series, so I think that thought with alarming frequency). I decided to paint Godzilla's pteranodon pal, Rodan, as a tiki:

RODAN TIKI (acrylic on canvas 20" x 24").

While technically not a tiki, Tobunga, the monster in the horrible 50's B-movie From Hell It Came seems tikiish to me... he's a big scary wooden thing lurking about on a south seas island, so I did this painting.

TOBUNGA RISES! (acrylic on canvas 11" x 14").

Actually Tobunga is a badly made rubber suit, stiffly operated by some poor bastard inside. Kinda like one of those trees from HR Puffinstuff, but evil. My Tiki Central handle is an homage to this endearingly awful creation.

Now I'm really getting into this tiki groove, and so I returned to the tiki monster theme with A TIKI FROM A BLACK LAGOON (acrylic on canvas 20" x 24").

Along with the other art I do, I'm now starting to think tiki... and I LIKE it!I did a couple of pieces using dramatic lighting and framing, so I did two tikis at sunset, where they were mostly in shadow, or silhouette... TIKI SUNSET 1 and TIKI SUNSET 2, both acrylic on canvas 11" x 14".

So now my mind is in total tiki overdrive, and I'm furiously drawing idea after idea. Here's a painting based on the Hitchhiking Ghosts from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland (something else I really love!)

HITCHHIKING TIKIS (acrylic on canvas 20" x 24").

I just had 14 pieces (including these) in the Mainlander's 1st Anniversary Luau and Art Show. What a thrill to have my
new-found passion on display with other incredibly talented tiki artists!

I'll be posting some more work as soon as I get some photos. If you would like to see more of what I do, please visit my website: http://www.ericoctober.com

At the moment, there's not much tiki art on display there (in fact, there's more of my tiki work here), but on the next update to the site, I should have lots more of the tiki art I've done up... but I'll probably post it here first, anyway!

At a quick count, I have about 20 different tiki ideas percolating in my head right now, so I better get drawing...

[ Edited by: tobunga 2010-05-04 00:14 ]