NETFLIX
Hard Facts:
THE WORLD‘S BIGGEST TATTOO
Every year, people from all over the world set the craziest records or break existing records. When our friends at Netflix came up with the idea of creating the world's biggest tattoo for the release of the “How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)” prequel BUBA came around the corner with the idea of creating the world's biggest tattoo, we were of course immediately hooked. The result is an absolute milestone that is unparalleled and has never existed in this form and size anywhere in the world.
THE WORLD‘S BIGGEST TATTOO, we made it!
However, before the huge portrait of Bjarne Mädel could see the light of day in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, we developed ideas together with tattoo artist friends and spent a few days prototyping in order to test the various approaches for implementation. It quickly became clear that, as with our hand-painted murals, only good old-fashioned craftsmanship would lead to success. So within a few weeks, we had to get the best co-creators on board, plan an event for the unveiling and bring the BUBA project to life.
As a human back in house wall format was unfortunately not available to us, we resorted to artificial skin for tattooing in order to let off steam on the total of 736 sheets in A2 format. 310 of these were actually tattooed by hand, which corresponds to a total area of 10 x 11 meters. A total of 12.5 liters of tattoo ink were applied under the artificial skin in 1060 working hours by 36 artists in 6 different studios using approx. 850 needles. What an insane ride! But that wasn't all. After all, the skins also had to go on the wall. This was achieved using a giant poster measuring 186 square meters and weighing 145 kg as the backing material, onto which the individual skins were then sewn by hand. In three days, Johann Ruttloff, his charming assistant Zoe and an additional team of helpers made 2944 cuts and straightened the skins, glued over 1.5 km of double-sided adhesive tape, punched more than 20,000 holes by hand and sewed 3 km of thread by hand. Without two yoga breaks a day, some of the team would probably have been stitched up and ended up on the wall.
The whole thing was crowned with the unveiling in Ehrenfeld as part of a wonderful event. All that remains for us to say is: 1000 thanks to all our favorite people who worked with us to create the biggest tattoo in the world. Always good for goosebumps!
