Lightning addition

Believe it or not, I did not misspell "LIVE" in this tattoo. Ivie is the guy's last name, but the text was there before I got to him.

Stuff I forgot to post

These are a few that I worked on a while back that slipped my mind. Enjoy! By the way, the back piece took me several sessions, due to timing issues and just plain fatigue.

WTF

Pretty much, this blog disappeared yesterday, only to magically reappear today. Why? Who? No clue.

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.