Motifs & animals- shouldn’t they face forward?

[KevinCunningham]

Howdy engravers

I was trained as a tattooer and have 25 years experience- I’m coming up on one year total cutting with gravers so everything is still kinda shiny and new to me.

As a tattooer one fairly hard rule is that with the client’s body standing and relaxed all tattoos should face forward. A chest piece or front of thigh or whatever is a gray area, but a lady head in profile that faces backward on the shoulder for example is a RED FLAG that the tattooer wasn’t properly trained.

In gun engraving there are plenty of times where a game scene is cinematic and the composition faces out to be viewed from the side, and may even tell a story. These usually look great.

Lots of times though I see animals in profile facing the rear of a rifle or shotgun and it always screams wrong to me. Is this because of my tattooer training? I’ve seen engravers talk about running borders being backwards and a mistake, but in all my engraving specific art books I haven’t seen it mentioned.

Obviously this is art, not math, and rules are made to be broken but for example check out this showstopper in an auction ad on the back cover of a magazine. Perhaps forgetting the back to front flow of a firearm the animals are going right to left like Hebrew or Japanese to imply coming toward the ready rifleman to meet their end? Objects implying speed or movement in western art are often figured left to right since our eyes are trained that way from reading.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting topic and this is usually a good place for informed diacussion.

 

[wowilson]

Both of those guns have a stagnant design. Neither are goin anywhere.

 

[FANCYGUN]

I always have my animals facing forward or to the muzzle end of the gun. Also any scenes with action or movement I try to have face or move for wad also. But there are always exceptions on rare occasions such as multiple scene panels that might be interacting to each other.

it is the way..............

 

[oniemarc]

Yes....as tattooers...we seem to have developed eyes that are drawn to this type of thing. To me...it looks wrong too, but...I think we are stuck in our ways a bit too much sometimes....hahaha

Marc

 

[SamW]

Ditto Marty's comments. I always try to get the action facing towards the muzzle. Also as Marty says, there are occasional exceptions but I always try to keep the action forward.

 

[Leland Davis]

When building early long rifles everything has to flow from the butt to the muzzle. Engraving is the same but I am working on a scene with 2 squirrels in a confrontation. Some body is going to be the wrong way.

 

[KevinCunningham]

When building early long rifles everything has to flow from the butt to the muzzle. Engraving is the same but I am working on a scene with 2 squirrels in a confrontation. Some body is going to be the wrong way.

Of course if you’re telling a story something’s gotta give! But if you had just one animal I can’t imagine pointing it toward the butt. Now I do want to be careful here- I’m not gonna go on record trashing Ulrich

 

[JJ Roberts]

I've engraved animal's and bird's in pair's one looking forward to the muzzle and one looking back to the butt I will do drawings of the game scene until I come up with a pleasant game scene with trees, sky and foliage. J.J.

 

[JJ Roberts]

This weekend is the Nations Gun Show in Chantilly Virginia 21,22 and 23th I have a table if your in the area stop by and see my display of engraved guns. J.J.

 

[papart1]

wow, a bunch of stuff to learn on this post.............................thank you guy's Rob

 

[JJ Roberts]

Here is an example of a game scene where I paired up two wood cock male and female both looking in different directions on a Browning A5 shotgun.

 

[Davesobel]

At first glance, that rifle does look “wrong”, but if you take a second look, the puma is stalking the deer and wouldn’t work facing the other direction. Also a longtime tattooer here(33yrs) and I agree with animals and people facing forward unless otherwise necessary.

 

[papart1]

I'd say in a lot of instantes............it's all up to the gravers hand

 

[Chujybear]

unnecessary rule. the purpose is to have the work engage the viewer... and it is not wrong.. its a basic shorthand to that end, but at the cost of the most dynamic aspects of a silhouette. are you directing energy around a design or do you want to freeze that energy in a place.
notwithstanding that forward for most prey is out the side of its eyes...
but seriously, imagine a composition where all the animals are just smiling for the camera?

 

[KevinCunningham]

unnecessary rule. the purpose is to have the work engage the viewer... and it is not wrong.. its a basic shorthand to that end, but at the cost of the most dynamic aspects of a silhouette. are you directing energy around a design or do you want to freeze that energy in a place.
notwithstanding that forward for most prey is out the side of its eyes...
but seriously, imagine a composition where all the animals are just smiling for the camera?

I love that my question sparked so much discussion! I don’t think there is a rule that wasn’t made to be broken, but one needs to be doing it with purpose and not ignorance. So I dunno about unnecessary?

If the big cat is stalking the other animal and because of the arrangement of the panels on the firearm it could only be done one way that makes a lot of sense.

Also to my eye some of the best engraving (and visual art in general) has a flow that moves your eye around the piece. It only makes sense for that movement to flow toward the muzzle of a firearm. Looking at art one can see tons of decisions and often questioning them will get you closer to understanding what the artist is trying to communicate. The idea that speed, power, and deadly energy flows forward through a firearm is so basic and primal that I can’t imagine not using that concept. In other words it presents an opportunity to go along with it, or if you ‘break the rule’ it could be a conscious or unconscious point to express an emotion or idea to the viewer.

Don’t take this the wrong way though. As a tattooer and commercial artist I am super familiar with ornament for its own sake, or horror vacui driving for full coverage or at least scraping the ‘plain’ off of an object. The message could be about the hunter’s place in the food chain, the majesty of nature, or just showing the value and beauty of the object. I like the idea that there doesn’t need to always be subtext but I think that’s wrong too- it just doesn’t have to be a deep statement that pierces to the heart of the human condition.

So while it might not be a Rule I do think that the idea that forward is toward the muzzle is just as valid as the idea that up is where the sights are, and that most racks are butt down so if you want bulino on the bottom of a shotgun receiver or initials on the trigger guard we all know what direction they go.

 

[mdengraver]

Here is an example of a game scene where I paired up two wood cock male and female both looking in different directions on a Browning A5 shotgun. View attachment 51297

Nice work JJ!

 

[JJ Roberts]

Here is another example of a deer and dogs on a German silver patch box cover for a muzzle loading rifle I engraved for a customer.

 

[mitch]

unnecessary rule. the purpose is to have the work engage the viewer... and it is not wrong.. its a basic shorthand to that end, but at the cost of the most dynamic aspects of a silhouette. are you directing energy around a design or do you want to freeze that energy in a place.
notwithstanding that forward for most prey is out the side of its eyes...
but seriously, imagine a composition where all the animals are just smiling for the camera?

Yeah, but…. As Kevin rather poetically explained, a gun is a dynamic canvas with a clear “force vector” moving in a forward direction. There are also other traditional conventions in our art, such as north/south timed screws, checkering, etc.

Having said that, one needs to know when to “break the rules”.

 

[mdengraver]

Learn the rules then you can break them!

 

[KevinCunningham]

Thanks Mitch! This is a discussion not an arguement but I’m flattered that you appreciated my musings. I consider myself the peer of many here as a veteran commercial artist but certainly not as an engraver as I only have a year in with an FFL.

I also have the benefit and detriment of an art school education which frequently helps inform decisions to the point of inaction.

So ironic or not I’ll take “poet”