Rat Tribal (embossed)

This is mine. One of the artists at the shop did it for me in exchange for the flower posted earlier. Man, I forgot how much these things hurt! Especially after it's been going for an hour or so. So worth it, though. Oh, and the reason why the top photo is flipped is because I had to take it through a mirror to get a good view.

Goat Eye with Scales

This is old. In fact, since I did this one, a fellow artist has been working on completing this dude's sleeve. However, I snatched a photo of the tattoo untouched.

 

Just the eye. ;)

Firefighter Skull Add-on

Added on the client's kids' names and touched up a few bits here and there that the red ink just didn't settle the first time. I'm liking the idea of doing free-hand tattoos (or at least sections of them). I needed a pattern for the words, obviously, but the flames were done without a pattern. It's really fun and the client really liked it!

Tattoo trading - flower

The other week, I was speaking with another artist I work with, discussing work he's had done on his skin. I mentioned that I have several ideas that I'd like to get and he asked why I haven't yet. When I said it was because of the cost, he replied, "What do you mean? You work at a tattoo shop! You don't have to pay us."

Obviously, I can't ask for much without some form of deal, so I got him to agree to trade work. This is what he asked me to do the other day.

I was surprised at first that he'd let "the apprentice" do work on him, but he didn't even hesitate as far as I could tell. I think it turned out real well. One of the other artists commented on it, telling me that my shading is getting better and better with every tattoo I do. Sweet.

SLC Convention Results

My mentor paid for me and the other artists at the shop to go to the SLC Tattoo Convention. It was pretty cool to see so many awesome artists and beautiful tattoos. It was a really sweet atmosphere...
Anyway, so my wife and I got to tattoo-starved from it.

...

That's all I'll say about it. However, here are two new tattoos!

 She's been thinking of adding to her heart for so long, and finally added that idea to the one she has also been working on forever of having a peacock feather. They go together very well. We might add some color into the heart later on, but I'm loving how it looks as negative space so far.

Adding to my leg (which is becoming a collage of childhood/adulthood memorabilia). This "H" represents Red Dwarf. I love how well it pops out there.

Burning Skull addition

The guy had the skull, originally. I added the wings, flames, and some detail to the skull. You can kind of see the before in the photo with the stencil visible.

Wave sleeve update

 

Update for the sleeve.Going quite well and nearly finished. Added blue to the waves with a bit of white highlight to the wave crests.

Another batch of work done at the tattoo shop. Well, the butterfly and flower that are together were done at my place, but this is my latest stuff.

You might notice that the last design is familiar. The woman with the razor blade wanted it covered. She didn't like needing to explain the meaning of it to her small grandchildren. This is the result.

Tattooing is fun! I spent a good amount of my break from work doing it. Maybe too much, but I am feeling good about it.

Bio-Hazard

My skills are improving! It's been difficult in the past in a few areas that I feel I've been getting some good practice in lately. Namely with this design were actually two items.

• Connecting shading/filling to the outline. Have you ever colored in a coloring book? Filling solid shapes in a tattoo are very similar. The main difference is that when you are using crayons, you are only mildly worried about going outside the lines. Even if you did, the consequences wouldn't be that dire, right? There's a common thing we beginners do where in order to not go outside that line and cause a permanent mistake on a person's skin, we tend to not even meet the line. It creates an odd line of normal skin inside the design. Anyway, I've been working to just be extra aware of where the needles are hitting and it's getting better. I can still see areas where I didn't get in this tattoo, but I'm very happy with how many lines I got dead on! The effort continues.

• Using magnum needles. My first experience with these was with the gigantic "strength" kanji. I used a 1 mag, which is two rows of needles, looking kind of like a small and dangerous paint brush. I couldn't get the ink to stick at all with it, so I've been scared of trying ever since. My mentor got me to try is again and I'll never turn back to filling large areas with a round bit. Never! It's amazing how well they work and get larger areas much quicker than anything else. This tattoo was filled with a 7 mag (one row of 4 stacked with one row of 3.

A Batch Cooked Up in Studio

Well, I thought it appropriate to up load what I've been up to. I've had ups and downs in progress, but generally love what I've been doing at this tattoo shop. Pretty simple stuff so far. I am going to get practicing more line work in my sketchbook so my lining looks better. I'm working alongside decades of experience now, so I'm stoked to absorb all I can while I'm here.

Yes, this bee has appeared on the blog already. This is a higher-resolution photo.