more tribal

So here is the dude I was telling you about yesterday. he came in and sat for me for about 3.5 hrs. I got alot done! Here are some before and after pics....

here is a close-up of the linework that he had already there....

So here you can see how Anna and I drew some guidelines to straighten out the not so straight linework that didn't really match up right.

After this I lined what I drew and started filling in what I could before he had to leave. Here are some more pics.

here you can see what I started filling in. cleaned up the lines a bit and tried not to overwork the skin. So far no holes! sweet!

it was so sweet working the floor tonight with Scotty and Anna even squeezed one in!

Tomorrow I tattoo Noah's other shoulder again. More pics to come!

Aloha!

recap of thursday

I got to do two tattoos on Thursday and i totally forgot to log it.

These two are some cool people that Noah brought in for me. Miss Liz wanted the word "forever" with some pink diamonds, and the dude Royce wanted some kanjis down his back.

I was super excited about these... I think that I could have done better on the lettering, but for my first script on skin i definitely learned alot and applied that to the application of the kanjis. totally weird tattooing her thigh too. gotta work on my stretching. my biggest thing with the lettering was that i was too damn scared to go too deep and scar her. i asked her to come back when its healed for a touch-up and let me go over what i need to work on. She was a super cool chick, really sat well and already wants me to do something else very small on her. it made me happy to know that she has some faith in me and doesn't know me at all.

my letter consistency needs to be dialed some more so that all the lines look perfect. i've seen ALOT worse in my experience working in a shop, but i sure as hell don't want to give anyone anything less than perfect. this is my first attempt and i intend to improve...

The next one was some kanjis and they came out great! i took what i learned from the lettering and my linework came out alot better and wasn't so afraid of making my lines as much.

This guy was really nice as well. it didn't take me as long to do these either. what really put me in the zone is that Bill left me alone for about an hr after i did the linework to these... this is going to sound stupid but i was totally at peace or something. it was like nothing else was going on.

here's a close up of the kanjis.


I'm excited for this evening! a young guy in the military walked in for a spider on his leg later that night. so i hooked him up with one of our artists at the shop to do that for him, and then i noticed that his entire left arm is outlined only in tribal. soooo of course it wasn't hard to convince him to let me redo the outlines and finish his arm.


i'll post pics of my progress on that this evening after work. then on sunday... noah again! i'm gonna start fixing up his other side! so awesome!


Until next time...

ALOHA

Melinda's Medusa

Last month I met Melinda on the West 4th Street subway platform, a location I came to appreciate this past summer for its diversity of interesting tattoos.

Our conversation began on the platform in Manhattan and ended in Brooklyn after a trip on the D train.

Melinda has two tattoos and she shared this one, from her inner left forearm:

She explained that this tattoo is based on the shield of Minerva (in the Roman pantheon) and Athena (in the Greek pantheon).

The shield features the head of the serpentine-tressed Medusa who, if you didn't know, could turn creatures (men, mostly) to stone with a simple gaze.

Melinda loves the contrast between the Minerva and Medusa figures and the relationship between the two mythologies.

The tattoo was inked by Kelly Krantz, of the now defunct Hold Fast Tattoo in Brooklyn. Kelly now tattoos by appointment only, and more details can be found on his website here. Work by Kelly has appeared previously on best-tatto-design here.

Thanks to Melinda for her good company on the D train back in August, and for sharing her tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

Liz Flexes Her Tyrannosaurus Rex

I met Liz last month on the West 4th Street platform as we were waiting for the D train.

She has six tattoos, including a really cool Brooklyn Bridge tattoo that she designed and, she proudly told me, Exene Cervenka once complimented her on.

The tattoo she shared with us, however, is this design of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, inked on her upper right arm:

The piece was modeled after the fossil displayed prominently in The American Museum of Natural History, where her brother had worked for a period of time. The tattoo is an homage to the time she spent there.

The tattoo was inked by Christopher Depinto aka The Ink Shrink at Shotsie's Tattoo in Wayne, New Jersey. Work from Shotsie's has appeared previously on best-tatto-design here.

Thanks to Liz for sharing her dinosaur tattoo with us here at best-tatto-design!

First Tattoo in Hawaii!

So I just finished up tattooing Noah for about 3 hrs. He has some old tribal from about 11 years ago that needs to be refreshed.

Here are some pics from my day. So stoked! Learned alot today! I outlined three large areas and was able to fill in two of them before he had to get going.

I started re doing the outline obviously, then worked up to filling it in.

It was really weird tattoong this area! So stoked on it!  Noah was a really good sport the whole time. Bill sat with me the entire time too. Enjoy the pictures! More to come tomorrow....

I booked some diamonds on the thigh and some lettering!

Aloha,
Tina

Tyler's Bald Eagle

I spotted Tyler outside of my office building on Seventh Avenue last month.

Actually, the first thing I noticed was Tyler's eagle:

One of three tattoos he has, Tyler explained that he really likes traditional designs, and that eagles, in his opinion, are among the coolest animals.

He also likes the way feathers look in tattoo designs, and this eagle's plumage is inked exceptionally well.

He credits Jeremy at Imperial Tattoo in Portland, Oregon with this piece.

Thanks to Tyler for allowing his eagle to fly here on best-tatto-design!

Nick's AK-47

I met Nick outside of Penn Station and, of his "six or seven" tattoos, he offered up this one:

Nick had this AK-47 inked on his stomach to pay homage to his Russian heritage. He told me that this tattoo was done by Fernando Alvarez out in Los Angeles.

Thanks to Nick for sharing his ink with us here at best-tatto-design!