Shoulder sleeve tatou in Maori Kirituhi style

Hi,

It has been quite a while since my last post, but I have been really busy with all kind of projects, from logo design to t-shirts and other custom projects.

Here's my latest design in Maori style, a shoulder sleeve for my galleries, where it is available for purchase.
This series of pictures shows the process from the first pencil sketch to the traced design:

The final traced drawing, before the scanning and optimizing process:

Some nice  depth of field photos:

Upper part of the Maori tattoo, partially traced with a marker

a nice overview of the total tattoo

The completed design with flowing maori koru curves

If you're interested in ordering the high resolution design and stencil/linedrawing of this tattoo, simply hit the 'buy now' button below and you will be forwarded to the Paypal website, so you can order with creditcard or Paypal account:

Size: 30 x 26 cm (11,5 x 10 inches)

Product code: Shoulder tattoo 155

Price: 41,65 euro (57 USD)

Any questions? Just let me know.

Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@best-tatto-design.com
www.best-tatto-design.com

Niki Returns with a New Tattoo by Dr. Lakra

I think I'm within the statute of limitations for Thanksgiving, so let me say I am also thankful for past contributors sending me photos of new work that they want to share with the best-tatto-design community.

Take Niki, for example, who I met in the summer of 2010, and whose tattoo appeared here. Out of the blue she recently sent me this e-mail:

"about a year ago, you featured my beautiful cat memorial tattoo (by John Reardon, who was at Saved Tattoo at the time). i follow your blog regularly.  you always feature beautiful work with interesting stories attached. i just got a crazy new tattoo that i thought i'd send along, in case you think it's worthy of sharing.  it was done by the incredible dr. lakra in oaxaca, mexico."

 

That's pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself. Skulls are common tattoo themes, so it is exciting to see a spin on that idea, and what better way to honor getting inked by a famous Mexican artist than by getting a skull with a tattered lucha libre mask?

Thanks to Niki for staying in touch and sharing her new tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

You can see more art by Dr. Lakra here in his Google photostream.

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

only 3 days away

This was my deer skull that I started yesterday. We went into the shading in the skull for the time being, and outlined the antlers. I had fun with this one, its my biggest tattoo I've done to date, and I can't wait to shade in the antlers. It'll be cool to see how this heals....

This was done last wednesday....on my bestest friend Lauren. She's been wanting this tattoo for years, she's been waiting for me to tattoo her since I started apprenticing years back at the other shop, however it was well worth the wait. Although the foot was pretty painful for her, she sat through the whole thing. Kudos to Lauren!!!!! xoxox

close up

Walkin done at No Ka Oi last week. She wanted just an outline at first but I think a little shading and the blue really brought it out.

Cool walkin from today at No Ka Oi. She was super nice, from out of town, and this was her first one. Again, she just wanted linework originally, but after some careful persuading we added some shading just to give it at least some depth. Tattoos that are just outline always look unfinished to me (there are exceptions to this of course) So after this was done she was super stoked on it, as was I. I hope to see her back in the future to possibly add more to it.


So the countdown begins. I leave Friday morning. I'm almost done packing, have to get my bike all packed up so I can ride around the island, and getting all my other stuff in order. I can't wait to get out of here for a little while. It'll be nice to be away from everything and come back refreshed. Its kind of funny....I had literally just mentioned going back to Hawaii to my boss a few weeks ago, and then I get the call to go out there. Funny how things pan out.

Until next time....

The best-tatto-design Book Review - Science Ink

If you’re still recovering from a day of camping out and fighting the crowds for Black Friday holiday gifts, might I suggest one more item for your list?

Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed was recently published by Sterling Press and it rates as one of the finer titles on tattoos that I have seen in while. Science Ink is written by Carl Zimmer, a science writer with great credentials and whose blog rates a spot on my blogroll shortlist.

I have been a fan of Carl Zimmer’s Science Tattoo Emporium since 2008, even warranting a mention in a stand-alone post here.

I was excited to hear last year that he was compiling a book on the subject of scientific tattoos, as, unlike a lot of the work in London Tattoos (my last review, which appeared here), the ink is drenched in meaning.

As a storyteller and a writer, I’ll admit to favoring tattoos that have stories and/or specific meaning behind them. Not that I don’t appreciate a fine work of  body art that is beautiful for beauty’s sake. I just find myself more intellectually stimulated by tattoos that pack a narrative punch. This is also why I dig literary tattoos.

All that being said, Zimmer should be commended for compiling a whole slew of scientific ink, and organizing it in such a thoughtful and pleasing way. Chapters are divided up by category (Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Earth Sciences, etc.) with photos of the contributors work, along with a paragraph or two devoted to explaining the accompanying pieces. These are not tattoos that resulted from walking in to a shop and picking flash off the wall. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Rather, we’re treated to tattoos that were clearly thought out and executed with the purpose of connecting to the individuals passion for their intellectual stimuli.


Tattoo purists may look at this book and cringe at the quality of some of the tattoos depicted. But the quality is not the point, and there is a lot of fine work, nonetheless. With a few exceptions, we are not seeing work contributed by tattoo aficionados. Instead, we get a glimpse of tattoos from people that you don’t normally associate with ink: scientists, doctors, university professors, and anthropologists. For that reason, Science Ink succeeds in drawing in the reader to the individual narrative behind the tattoo. What makes someone who is uninked take the leap and go under the needle?

Ultimately, it is the answer to that question that propels the mini-narratives forward and make Science Ink such a compelling read. Above and beyond the appreciation of tattoos, the book speaks to a larger audience, those who are steeped in the sciences and those who don’t consider themselves part of a “tattoo culture”. Ultimately, not everyone who is science-minded gets a tattoo related to their field, but a mathematician may understand someone’s desire to get an interesting equation inked on their forearm more than they would, say, getting a flaming skull or a scattering of cherry blossoms.

The biggest fault I find with Science Ink is not an original one. Marisa over at Needles and Sins voiced the disappointment in her review, as well, that the artists who created the body art are rarely named by the contributors. I always ask best-tatto-design contributors to disclose their artists’ names to give credit where credit is due. Occasionally I  meet people who do not recall the names of their artists, but that tends to be a smaller percentage. Zimmer includes a thumbnail “visual index” of contributors. It would be nice, if there is ever a Science Ink II, to include an index of artists, as well. As a saving grace, Zimmer does credit the artists on his website here, but I only discovered that by accident.** I’d imagine, however, that to the bulk of the reading audience, the tattooist’s identity  is not as important and may seem extraneous, but for many it is nice to see credit where credit is due.

All in all, however, Zimmer hits the ball out of the park with a wonderful tattoo-themed product that I fully endorse and recommend.

With the holidays just around the corner, this would make a great gift for the science obsessed person in your life!

**After this posted, Carl Zimmer e-mailed me:

"Thanks! I agree that the artists should get credit. My designer and I put together a list, but a change in schedule prevented the publisher from putting it into the book. We'll be sure to get it into the next printing".

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Thanksgiving Re-Post: Have a Happy and Safe Holiday!

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things, especially my lovely wife and two amazing daughters. You, the readers out there in the world, are also people for whom I am thankful. Mahalo, as they say in my childhood home, for visiting often.

I am also thankful for the month of November, which always seems to be a slowdown month for me and best-tatto-design. My posting pace slows significantly, despite still carrying a backlog of posts from the summer. Consider them my tattoo acorns that I'm saving for those cold days ahead when a tattoo sighting in New York generally means someone has removed their gloves or scarf!

Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for a flurry of book reviews, just in time for the holiday shopping season and, in the mean time, enjoy this post from last Thanksgiving, slightly edited, which appeared here.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of the holiday, I am sharing this, my newest tattoo, located above my knee on my right thigh:

This was done at Hand of Glory in Brooklyn yesterday as part of the shop's $75 Thanksgiving Tattoo Special ...

For those of you just tuning in, check the pre-post here, which includes all the Thanksgiving flash designed for the occasion. I asked readers to vote on which tattoo to get, and this one sneaked out a narrow victory over the traditional Native American profile.


I like this design because it combines a lot of traditional tattoo elements and delivers an image with a sociopolitical subtext. We have the traditional American flag and handshake designs, but the added element of crossed fingers serves as a reminder that, despite apparent good intentions, there was subsequently a historical betrayal of that initial good will.


But that's just one perspective, of course, and the Thanksgiving holiday focuses on the positive in our society. The mere existence of the tattoo reminds me to be thankful, which I alluded to in my original post.


I was fortunate enough to have BJ as my artist again. He had inked my Friday the 13th tattoo last August, and I appreciate that he works quickly and concisely.

BJ at Work

It was nice, also, that this design was one of his contributions to the flash sheet, as he was kind enough to embellish slightly on the original design, and it always seems better when an artist is tattooing his or her own design. As for the idea behind it, he was trying to represent graphically a broken treaty. I'm extremely pleased with the end result.
...

I want to thank all of the readers who voted for designs, and for everyone who reads and supports the site.


And thanks again to ... BJ at Hand of Glory, and to my family, at home in Brooklyn and across the U.S., for their support

This entry is ©2010, 2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Hawaii bound!

So it looks like I'm heading back out to Hawaii to guest spot at Skin Deep again. I leave Dec 2 and I come back to Philly sometime early Jan....very excited, yet very stressed out. Unfortunately we lost a very important man named Mike Brown, who has been tattooing for well over 30 years. Super nice guy, honest, funny and a pleasure to be around despite the fact that he can be cranky :) He let me tattoo him the last time I went out there, it was one of the first roses I ever did. He had an impact on me and I'll never forget him ...... here's to you Mike!

And now back to business..... since I'm leaving town in 2 weeks, I'm scrambling to get shit done and do as many tattoos as I can. Here's what I've been up to....

This was a sweet walkin that came in today... super nice guy that has a love for Sailor Jerry designs. He brought this one in, and we got it all done....after I get back we plan on doing more with his arm and adding all the stars and dots to go with it. Definitely fun one to do, my first Peacock!

Finally got to finish this one last week... Jon is letting me do some fun stuff on him lately! He let me design this lettering and do it however I wanted... so we finally finished it after the outline healed.... here's what we got so far...

The next one we started is a rose near his elbow... it's a crappy pic so when it's all done I'll be sure to post it.

Steve came back last week also to finish the poly segment that we started... we were finally able to get rid of that line that divided the spearheads... going to see how it heals up and hopefully I can get a nice touchup session in with him so I can get some good photos of this. I want to be able to put this in my book for Hawaii so I can get more experience with Poly designs.

The lovely Rose came back to NJ last week to get a few letters added to her IRS shield. After we were thinking about it, we should have just put the initials in the center of the shield, but at that time she was unsure about putting his name in there considering the shield was his....Anyway I got to see the tattoo up close and healed up, overall was happy with how the color healed, touched up a few tiny spots....the outline needed some work, I wasn't too stoked on how they seemed to blow out a little after it healed. I'm just being critical. Going to watch myself on that one.

A BIG kudos to Parker for letting me do this boxing cock on him!!! I got to play around with weird color combos and deal with working with really stretchy skin since he's lost so much weight over the years. This second session went way better, I got to see how his skin worked and had less trouble streching. I hope to see this healed great so I can get to the purple behind the head again... I want to blend it out more I think. Also it'll be good to see a pic without the blood :)

This was a walkin about a week and a half ago. A challenging design that definitely made me sweat a little, however it was a good challenge. I guess you could say it's good practice/warm-up for my upcoming trip to Hawaii...lots of tribal-type designs.

Well that's all for now, got a busy week coming up! I'll post more when time allows....

ALOHA

Mark's Dueling Sugar Skulls

On a Sunday back in July, I met Mark on the subway. He chose to share these tattoos among the many he has:

Full disclosure: it was this encounter that taught me an important lesson - my voice recorder doesn't do well on the subway.

I was able to ascertain that these companion pieces were inked with specific meanings. The blue tattoo on the right arm has the subtext of a break-up. Juxtaposed with that is the red piece which represents the rise of artistic expression.

These nearly-mirror image tattoos were credited to Shaun Carroll at Hod Rod Tattoo in Blackburg, Virginia.

Thanks to Mark for sharing these tattoos with us here on best-tatto-design!

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Gabby and Carter, Forever in eBaum's World

At the end of August, I spotted a couple near the entrance to Penn Station on Seventh Avenue. The woman had a bunch of tattoos, the man did not appear to have any. When I interviewed them, it turned out that the guy did have a tattoo on his arm - one that corresponded to a piece in the center of his companion's chest. Here's a peek:

Our chat was a little bit rambling, but here are the highlights:

Me: What are your guys' names?

Woman: Gabby. Carter.

Me: Gabby and Carter?

Carter: Yes.

Gabby: Forever.

Me: Forever? How long you guys been together?

Gabby: Like, two years.

Me: So, what is that, it's a heart and a...

Gabby and Carter: It's eBaum's World.

Gabby: It's a website.


Carter: It's been around forever ... like YouTube.

Me: So that's just like the logo? The heart?

Carter: And the little globe, I got that.

Gabby: I did that tattoo on him.

Me: You tattooed that on him? Then who did yours?

Gabby: My friend, Nick. We're not friends anymore...

Me: Well, the two of them go together, that's cool.

Carter works for eBaum's world, which can best be described as a site for videos, like YouTube, but with more of a CollegeHumor.com slant. It's not just videos, but jokes, blogs, photos and games.

Thanks to Gabby and Carter for sharing these companion tattoos with us here on best-tatto-design!

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Al Shares Two for best-tatto-design, Including a Rare Sole Tattoo

Back in August I received an email from Al, one of the thousands of people that commutes in and out of Penn Station on a daily basis.

As a reader of best-tatto-design, Al recognized that a lot of my inkspotting occurred in this major transit hub and he had recently thought he saw me there. Of course, this was quite feasible, as I generally pass through Penn during my lunch hour, as well as before and after work.

He also sent me some photos and, as occasionally happens, the e-mail from Al got buried in the deluge known as my inbox.

But we are excavating it here to share some of Al's ink. I'll let him do the heavy lifting....

"... I often read your blog and I especially love the stories you include about how you ran in to each person or convinced them to show you their tattoos or whatever it was.  Also the fact that you include the artist info (when you can) is amazing!  So thanks, and keep up the good work!

... [Included are] pictures of two of my tattoos that are especially fun for me, and in their own ways, unique.  The first at the top of my back, and it's an image of a jaw harp done as if it were an old-school traditional piece.

If you haven't heard of a jaw harp (also called Jew's harp, trump, mouth harp, etc...) check it out!  It's a very simple instrument that has a place in indigenous cultures all around the world...and it's one of the most ridiculous and fun instruments I've ever played.  I especially love that it's considered something of a "low class" instrument in most cultures.  Sort of the underdog of the musical world!  This piece was done by Michael Hastings at the Boston Tattoo Company in Somerville, MA.

The second one is less of a serious tattoo and more of a product of "hey, you know what would be funny?"  A tattoo artist friend of mine and I were joking around, and I convinced him to tattoo the bottom of my foot, more or less to see what would happen.

Anyone will tell you that getting a tattoo down there is a bad idea, but how exactly would it work out?  Well, the first picture you see is on it's second or third day of life -- already blown out in areas and starting to fade. One month later, and you can see it's already nearly half gone.

It was a fun tattoo experiment, and it earns me major badass points everywhere I go :-)"

Thanks to Al for sharing these tattoos with us here on best-tatto-design!

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

new stuff

Even though it's been slow, I did get one walkin the other day in NJ... an older gentleman came in for this one. He brought in the patch and asked me to duplicate it. He was super nice and I hope to see him again.

So this one is just in the sketch phase right now... this is a client of mine from a few months back, I tattooed a bike gear on her calf. She came in a few days ago to discuss a deer skull on her upper back. Naturally I was stoked on this idea, and went right to the drawing board. She's going to stop in tonight to take a look at what I have so far, measure it up to fit her, and then get back to the drawing board again for a solid greyscale study and final line drawing. I'll keep you posted on this!

Until next time....

Petra's Tattoo with Teeth

A couple weeks back, I was coming out of my office at 7 Penn Plaza when a woman named Petra walked by with this tattoo on her foot:

When I stopped her and introduced myself, she was happy to share it with us here on best-tatto-design.

Petra explained that this is the skull of a Velociraptor. When I asked why this particular design for a tattoo, she elaborated:

"Velociraptor is my spirit dinosaur. They're small and quick and very vicious and I identify with that as a person ... I really like dinosaurs. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock-climbing paleontologist, so I knew it was something that I'd like, you know, for the rest of the time I have my skin on."

This is Petra's first tattoo, and she got it inked by Cheyenne Sawyer at Atlas Tattoo in Portland, Oregon.

Thanks to Petra for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

Brian's Literary Chest Tattoo

The weather here in New York has been turning autumnal and visible tattoos have been disappearing from the streets, but fear not, Readers, we still have material to get us through the end of the year, thanks to a backlog of photos from the summer!

Case in  point is this tattoo from Brian:

I met Brian at a drugstore in Bay Ridge, back in the beginning of August. He told me he had just started working as an apprentice at A-List Industry Tattoos, a few blocks away.

At the time, Brian had seven tattoos, including this chest piece, which is comprised of two parts.

The top section reads "Incomplete - Imperfect" and is an allusion to lines from Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club:

"May I never be complete.  May I never be content.  May I never be perfect.  Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete."

Brian credited this piece to Paul Ilardi, the owner at Monster Tattoos on Staten Island.

The bottom section of the tattoo features a banner that reads "Death steals everything but out stories."

Brian explained that he took this to mean that "what outlives us is the memories we have, the stories we have".

It's actually the final line in a short poem by Jim Harrison:

Larson's Holstein Bull

Death waits inside us for a door to open.
Death is patient as a dead cat.
Death is a doorknob made of flesh.
Death is that angelic farm girl
gored by the bull on her way home
from school, crossing the pasture
for a shortcut. In the seventh grade
she couldn't read or write. She wasn't a virgin.
She was "simpleminded," we all said.
It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars.
She's lived in my memory for sixty years.
Death steals everything except our stories..

Brian credited this part of the tattoo to Cesar at Bullseye Tattoos, also on Staten Island.

Thanks to Brian for sharing his ink with us here on best-tatto-design!

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design, with the exception of  "Larson's Holstein Bull" by Jim Harrison from In Search of Small Gods. © Copper Canyon Press, 2009.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The best-tatto-design Book Review - London Tattoos

 

Let's eliminate the suspense - London Tattoos is a lovely book, and one of the best tattoo titles I have seen in recent years. I recommend it highly and strongly encourage best-tatto-design readers to check it out.

The book is beautifully photographed by Alex MacNaughton. The concept is simple: each subject stands in a full shot at the beginning of their section. There is a paragraph or two composed by the host, describing, in various degrees of detail, their tattoo journeys. A list of tattooist credits follow as footnotes, and then we are treated to several more (at the very least) more detailed shots of the body sections featuring the person's ink.

There is a fine distinction here, that between a close-up of a tattoo, and a close-up of the tapestry on which the tattoo is marked. Its a fine line of art that McNaughton executes brillianty. We catch glimpses of work, we see sections in great detail, but we are rarely confronted by an image that is a sterile full-frame of tattoo.

I just love the way that this photo narrative unfolds. Especially remarkable are the subjects who appear mostly, if not fully, covered. A turn of the page strips layers off of the individuals and we are treated to the artistic treasures that lie beneath. It dazzles the imagination, the unveiling of a person who appears uninked, only to reveal a breath-taking display of coverage that illuminates that this person spent hours upon hours under the needle.

It is brilliantly executed and I recommend it fully, all 304 pages with 700 color illustrations. Alex MacNaughton is also the author of London Street Art, London Street Art 2 and London Street Art Anthology. I encourage best-tatto-design readers to buy London Tattoos - the holidays are just around the corner - and, at the very least, visit MacNaughton's website here to get a bigger taste of the work inside this wonderful book.

This entry is ©2011 best-tatto-design. Photographs are ©2011 Alex MacNaughton.

If you are reading this on another web site other than best-tatto-design, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://best-tatto-design.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Progress

So even though it's been a bit slow round these parts because of the time of year, I've managed to do a few things in the past two weeks.

This was a small walkin at No Ka Oi yesterday, small n simple. Her first one.

 Another walkin the other day...the stencil line is still there but we only did the letters. Another first timer.

 This was an awesome day.... I was scheduled at No Ka Oi on sunday, so in the morning before we opened up I had an old friend come in, Heather. She volunteered to be my first ribcage tattoo. Really stoked on this one. It was also cool to have both Bill and Anna there will be, I was beyond shitting my pants on this one... stretching wasn't as bad as I thought...although it's all because she was the perfect candidate. I took my time and made sure it was really nice. Now the mission is to get more awesome people like Heather to help my cause and give up some skin in the areas and I'm inexperienced in: ribs, lower back, chest, stomach, hip..... any takers???  Many kudos to Heather for this one!!!

This is on a client that walked into NJ a few weeks ago.. he came back for me to finish his big flag. This is one of my biggest thus far, and really excited to finish it.  Another thing was that Bill gave me this really old Micky Sharpz that works wonderfully for greywash....so I got to use that and was really happy with the results... I still need some more work smoothing out the grey, but overall I'm happy with the tattoo and how it flows with his arm when he bends it. I hope to see him back soon for some good photos of this healed.

This was a walkin in NJ a week ago...name jawns for dayyssss

Many thanks to Amanda for giving up some skin for a small one dedicated to her Hub... classic!


Looks like that's it for now, I'll be posting more soon! Come in and get tattooed!