Review: Ghost House Collective Sketchbook

The Ghost House Collective, consists of Justin Burnout, Lee (L.W.B.) and Vicky Morgan of Bodycraft Tattoo in Nottingham, England. They have released a new 60-page collaborative sketchbook with nods to each of their own individual styles from Japanese and Neo-Traditional to black and grey religious and Chicano styles. 

From first impressions alone the first thing you'll realise about the book is it's size. Your getting a lot of content at 60 pages. Each page is labelled with a marking to let you know who produced it from Vickys fine, flowing neo-traditional style pieces (including some stunning girl heads) to Justins chicano script and religious icons, agin this book is filled to the brim with line-drawings. This sketchbook is a lot more grounded then others I've encountered. It's contents while of equal standard to many of these sketchbooks provides subject matter that is feasible to most shops. It's a really useable book, large and full of relavent imagery.

To really review this book I'm going to have to break it down into sections;

Vicky Morgan: Vickys section of this book is full of beautiful neo-traditional work. Girl heads feature heavily in Vickys section with a mixture of Chicana, medmaid, geisha and gypsy style girl heads. This really will give a starting point for any girl head that comes in but at the same time Vickys section is the least varied in the book. Aside from a nice eagle, a ship and a stunning peacock every page contains a girlhead or variation on that theme. That said her work is a perfect example of neo-traditional with a level of ornateness combined with the quality of her girlheads that are so perfectly rendered that she can get away with this and the other two sections (Justin and Lees') bring the balence this section lacks. 

Justin Burnout: Justins section shows his flair for religious black & grey, Chicano and neo-traditional styles. You've got everything you could need for a street shop; Angels, crosses, skulls and 2 pages of his own signature style of script alongside some beautiful girls and religious icons. Everything is executed perfectly and the book is probably worth the money for this section alone. I'm a big fan of Justins script and his ability to take on realism and traditional styles at the levels he does is very impressive.

Lee (L.W.B): Lee's section of the book is easily the most versatile. I'm a big fan of his roses which feature heavily in the traditional pieces of his section. Lee's pieces are really well composed and flow particularly well. His sections features more of a mix of small and large pieces then the rest of this book with a handfull of usefull little filler pieces alongside some standout large pieces like some koi and a really on point snake. The only low point in this section is a hannya which has an odd facial expression.  

Overall I'd give this book a 9/10. It's large, varied and of use to any tattooer. This book shows three tattooers playing to their strengths and as I said about the Thomas St book I really like the different perspectives under the one cover. This book is well worth purchasing and can be picked up via http://www.ghosthousecollective.com/. With three tattooers of this quality Bodycraft is also well worth checking out!