Chrysanthemum

This one is on Darci, who works at the studio a couple days a week (she is the friendly phone voice for all of your questions and scheduling needs). 

Had a lot of fun with this.  I really enjoy doing flowers and especially "Japanese" ones, so I'm always looking to try out new ways of doing them.  It's important to me that a stand alone flower like this should be unique every time and given as much thought as any other design...

Koi, Skull and Chrysanthemum Leg

Lots of photos for this one, but it's really hard to capture the feel of the thing without seeing all the angles.  Nothing matches seeing a large tattoo in person, so I try to compensate by showing as much as I can.

This has been super fun.  It's much more loose and flowing for me and I really enjoyed doing the flowers  and skull on such a large scale.  Still going to tweak a spot or two maybe, then it's onwards and upwards to the thigh.

He's getting his other thigh tattooed from Hide (guest artist from Horitoshi Family in Tokyo) tomorrow, so not sure how much of a rush he'll be in... Although if anyone can get tattooed all the time and keep coming back for more, this is the dude.

Maple and Sparrows

Got going on the color.  Decided to keep the tones fairly muted and consistent.  The design is fairly busy and has lots of line work, so I don't think we need to be getting too crazy with the color (although I'm sure the branch will have plenty of texture and the birds will be fairly fancy)...

Fudo Sword

Finished up the color, and wow, those certainly are some bright flames.

Very happy with how well he healed and the over all look.  Tried not to trip too much on squeezing this in very snugly between Chris Trevino and Horitoshi work.  Not thinking too much while working seems to work well for me...

Thought we were done, but I've had an idea for it that we'll get to next week.

East Meets West

Long time no blog.  The past couple of weeks have been crazy and should be like that for the near future.

My friend Hide from Japan has been here working for the last few days (he is a traditional Japanese tattoo artist from the Horitoshi Family in Tokyo).  The response to his work has been overwhelming to say the least and he has been working non stop.

Average day is wake up, drink coffee, go to studio @10:30, set up (he hand makes his needles and hand grinds his sumi ink every day), start working at 12:00 or so, leave the shop around 9 or 10:00, come home and eat, talk for a while, then draw till the wee hours.

I'm on double duty of doing all my regular appointments, and facilitating and translating for him and his clients, but very happy that we are able to bring folks this kind of truly unique experience.

I'll get around to putting up some of my new stuff soon if I can find any time...

Maple and Sparrows

Got the outline done in one go for this one.  Nice client that I haven't tattooed in years (she even picked the trim color in the studio when I was first opening). She liked the drawing (that I posted a while back) but wanted less spiky points and to add some seed/bud thingies.  Both very good ideas.  The slightly simplified version fits her arm much better, and I think we're both happy with the balance of tattoo to open skin.

Grateful Dead

Well, living here in Humboldt, I should probably remember the name of the GD album that this is from but it seems to be escaping me.  I do remember that her name is Bertha, it's a super famous image, and my hand hurt after that outline...

Definitely happy with the outcome, and loving his a idea for the other arm (a big Robert Crumb piece!)

Note the authentic tye dye tank border for the tattoo.