Artistic Tattoo

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Some recent work.

ButterBaby.

Fancy S

These are a few pieces that I have recently finished or started. some are still Works in Progress (WIP) but all of them have been turning out nicely. I am working on a few collector spotlights, but for today this is what you get.

A bit of a tattoo fix...

Soon to be a Collector Spotlight.

A CoverUp, Add on piece.

Another upcoming Collector Spotlight.

Jason Voorhees with Flying V.

Only these last two pieces were finished at the Jade Monkey, the rest of them were finished at Artistic Tattoo, though many were started at the Jade Monkey.

Well, that's it for today,so much to do, so little time.... See you next week!
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Collector Spotlight #17: Samurai Backpiece

This is one of the pieces that I have been trying to get together to show here on the blog, but with moving to the new shop, getting resettled, and life at home, putting stuff together for the blog has been getting more and more difficult. Not giving in though, just slowing down a bit. Hopefully my few readers dont abandon me. haha!

    This weeks collector spotlight is a piece I have been working on for 3+ years, and it's not quite finished yet... just a few finishing touches. The Collector Johnathan lives out of state and we don't get to work on it very often.

    The Total concept at the top of the spotlight was figured out in stages, not all at once as I would generally prefer it, but some people don't quite figure out they are going for a full back piece until they get started. And that's exactly how this went.

The real start of the backpiece was this Future Samurai that Johnathan brought in. After a few sessions, we were already into the planning for the rest of the back, and building the concept of a full back samurai piece.

Healed versions of the Future Samurai.

While working on the foreground Samurai, we developed the concept you see above, using classic images, including a Fu Lion, and The Himeji  or "White Heron" Castle. The Fu Lion (proper term, not "fu dog") is a consistent image in cultures throughout Asia, I get it that this particular Fu Lion is more Chinese than Japanese, but it held more dramatic weight than other Japanese options in my opinion.
From here I superimposed the sketch onto a picture of John's back to show how it would look and fit.

From here began the process of the rest of the piece.

The stencil and outline, establishing the foundation of the rest of the design, everything else is dependant on this stage here; composition, shading and color cues all worked in, so that each following stage goes as smoothly as possible without too much time trying to decipher where we last left off in the piece each time we get back into it. This is something I do for all of my larger pieces, following a specific plan toward a clear goal, ending in predictable results.

A few closeups of the outline work.

After the Outline, the next sessions are just working each element, one by one, toward the finish line. I could have started anywhere, but as a reward, I saved the Himeji castle for last, and started with the next coolest element (in my own opinion) The Fu Lion.

This part was a lot of fun.

From here we just worked it out, section by section.

Then, we finally have started to reach the finish line, and the Himeji Castle finally got colored and shaded. This process took 3 years, and so was a big deal for us. We still have a few more things to do, the guidon flag, and a few details and touchups here and there. Again, when it's all done, I'll post finished pics here.

Thanks for reading! This Spotlight has been a long time coming and I appreciate your patience. I have a few others still in progress of putting together, still needing a few more pics, and to just get more time for it.

See you next week.

Collector Spotlight #16 Alpha and Omega

Unfortunately, during my first year and a half of tattooing I wasn't much focused on keeping good records, and so there are some piece (such as this one) that I really am proud of, yet I cannot remember who is wearing it. I feel terrible about that, but then there it is. Now, as I have come into my own I do maintain much better records of my work, who wears it and the pictures of the process. and still working to improve that part of my job all the time.

If any of my readers knows the bearer of this tattoo, let me know. I would like to add that to this image.

So anyway, this was a piece that quite a challenge, the parallel lines inside the letters as well as the fillagree around them, I was lucky it was so big, so I could work through all the detail with room to breath. It seems that the bigger the design gets, the easier it is to get the detail, but of course the longer it takes. smaller pieces with high detail tend to seem harder in my opinion.

Stages one and two are shown side by side here, I didn't have any other pics of this piece to show, and I am so short on time, I figured this would be a fun and easy bit to post today.

thanks for reading! I'll see you here next week!