Flesh Collage.

I will be showing how I made this collage in this instructable. This is mostly made out of images of exposed flesh cut from sources such as newspapers and printed images. Though this will mostly be an overview of the techniques used to achieve the textured fleshy look seen at the bottom of the image to give you the tools to make your own flesh collage if you so desire.

cardboard paper, glue sticks, a printer, printer paper, scissors, an exacto-knife, pins (to hold your composition), cork board(optional), lots of news papers or magazines.

Systematically start going through your newspapers or magazines with your exacto-knife or scissors and start cutting out all the bits of exposed flesh. This is the most time consuming part of the process so here are some tips to make the process a bit easier.

Tip1: When using the exacto knife stack newspapers or magazines that do not have flesh under the newspaper/magazine you're cutting, this will reduce the chance of tearing as you will always be cutting into the same material if your knife digs too far in.

Tip2: Newspapers as a material are prone to tearing when curving a cut from vertical to horizontal or the other way around. To avoid this, instead of making a turn just start a new cut in that direction instead.

Tip3: Do not feel like you're wasting your time cutting out tiny bits of flesh, usually there will be tiny seams in the composition those bits of flesh are perfect for.

Tip4: Faces are ideal, but make sure to get a wide variety of body parts, such as: arms, legs, stomachs, ect.

Tip5: If you see something non-flesh that might help your composition cut it out, it might be useful later and it's good to use as much of your material as possible.

For my composition I decided to make this ghostly looking fella the center point of the composition, and have a holy circle of fingers behind him. This involves drawing shapes on your cardboard paper and cutting them out one by one to insert into your composition. Use pins to hold your composition into place so you can get a good idea of what it'll look like.

Once you figure out where the flesh is going to go, it's time to start using all those cutouts. Use your gluestick to slowly fill out the flesh-space on your canvas. This is less time-consuming than the first step and far more fun in the end.

A few tips on filling out this part of the composition:

Tip1: You can glue only one side of a flesh bit down to allow another flesh bit to be slipped underneath it, giving you more control over the background and foreground.

Tip2: If you've been taking flesh bits from the same publication and have multiple of the same face, it can be good to put those copies close to each other to draw attention to the repeating pattern and make the collage you make seem even more otherworldly and mysterious.

Sometimes you want more orderly images of flesh to use in order to make a specific design. In this case, you may want to create a repeating image to print out and use. In this case I used my finger and cut it out multiple times to glue to my circle with all the fingers pointing in. I cut off the excess and placed it in my composition. After I was done with that I cut off the edges of finger print outs so it conformed to the circle better.

This is your most valuable tool when making your own flesh collages, as while you don't get that chaotic hodgepodge texture you get from snipping newspapers or magazines, you are able to create evocative images through repetition. It's especially useful if you're making monsters, you could make a spider out of toes, or a guy covered in ears. The world's your oyster.

For my background I decided to go with printed images of teeth which I got off of Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_tooth#/media/F...) which I again, created a repeating pattern of to print out. This time though I used the grid I made as a background for the image by gluing the cut out images to a base of cardboard paper which I put behind everything else.

When making your own background you may want to drop the fleshy theme as you would want your flesh creature to exist as a singular flesh entity. But if you're going my route in making almost everything out of flesh, you should consider using body parts that don't conform to the usual skin tone of the person such as teeth, tongues, hair, or if you're of stronger constitution than me: cuts and scabs... Just, don't send images of it to me.

Now that all the flesh has been placed, it's time to insert your final touches. For me, this means creating a set of clouds for the sky as well as a lightning bolt to strike the ghostly creature which I tucked behind the clouds.

This step could mean any number of things for you, but I find that images of divinity really tie together a fleshy composition as it embues it with a sense of power and otherworldliness that would otherwise not be quite so highlighted. This might seem sacrilegious, and it is.