new tattoos

So yesterday the handprint came in.... this was his first tattoo and he wanted his daughter's name with the print. The name was 14 letters long!!!! Hawaiian name obviously. We stuck with black and grey for this one.

This just walked in today, a young woman wanted her son's name on her shoulder. This is what we came up with.

Tonight at 5 I have Keone for the last session on his owl tattoo.

More to come!
ALOHA

Frank's Laserbeak Tattoo Transforms His Flesh

I met Frank in the Penn Plaza Borders yesterday and stopped to ask him about his tattoos.

"How many do you have?" I asked and he responded vaguely "a lot". That generally means at least a dozen, if not more, and he offered up this two-part tattoo, from his right arm:

This is a Transformer. More specifically, "Laserbeak," a Transformer that does reconnaissance.

This is one of the first tattoos that Frank got and, as one would expect, he had this done because he likes Transformers.

He credited the tattoo to Cort Bengston at Cort's Royal Ink Tattoo Studio in Patchogue, New York.

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

Sal's Tattoo Takes Wing

Today's tattoo comes to us courtesy of Sal, who is making his third appearance on best-tatto-design. We first met him in 2008 when he shared this Guns N Roses tattoo, and then again, in 2009 with this quote, inked on his forearm.

Both times I ran into Sal at the video store where he works in Brooklyn Heights. He alerted me to the fact that he had new ink, so I just had to stop by and see in person:

The collage might not bring out the finer details as seen in a closer view:

The bird is an American Robin. Why this particular bird? Sal explains: "Robins mean a lot to me - not just for their beauty, but for their meaning of hope and new beginnings".

American Robin -- Humber Bay Park (East) (Toronto, Canada) -- 2005, by en:User:Mdf

The tattoo artist is the phenomenal Mark Harada at East Side Ink in Manhattan. Work from Mark and other East Side Ink artists has appeared previously on our site here.

Thanks again to Sal for sharing his awesome new tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

some new stuff from the past week

Sorry it's been a week since my last post. I had strep throat and spent the last 5 days recovering.

So these last few tattoos were done in areas that I haven't really worked before (except one) and definitely was intimidated doing them. It was certainly a struggle, however I think that after these experiences I feel a little more confident in what I need to work on to make my linework better.

This woman came in late last week and Stolfi was about to do it then something else walked in that I'm not ready to do, so he did that one and gave this design to me. After redrawing it a bit the client (a young woman) and I came up with this. She wanted alot of color in an area that I've only tattooed once. This was a great experience in stretching.... and how to deal with a person that doesn't sit well at all! Looking back on this there are alot of things that I would have done differently. I'm not going to list all of them but it was so weird trying to blend all of these colors into an area that was so sensitive and she wouldn't stop moving it was very frustrating. After 2 hours she couldn't sit anymore so it knew she had it with me so we ended there. I wanted to blend white into the background but that didn't happen. Overall I would have done this differently, however the linework came out ok and I was relatively happy with the grey.

Anyway enough about that. yesterday was a good day. This girl came in and wanted her first tattoo which was a crown with gemini under it. Other than a few lines that were a bit wobbly this came out ok.

My biggest problem with this one is that she wanted it upside down. I think that if she put it the other way I would have noticed a few things.

 After the crown a bit later a group of three guys came in, all wanting one of these captains wheels somewhere on their body. Stolfi did one of the guys on his hand, the other was in this guys ditch (right here), and the last one on his thigh. The ditch was weird, his skin puffed up so quickly and was all wrinkly.

 This one on the thigh was fun too however his skin right there was so stretchy and awkward.

In summation this week was very challenging, but I think that after these couple of weird stretching areas I am stoked to learn something new.... everyday is a challenge but so worth the wait.

I have a handprint coming in tomorrow....

Will post pics
Aloha

Bonafide Bags Winners and Special Discount for best-tatto-design Readers!

Congratulations to the following readers who were among the winners selected among the 51 commenters on the original Bonafide Bags post.

American Pride winners:

Theresa Senato Edwards
Beverly Cornell
Thumper


Day of the Dead winners:

Kristina V.
Jason
Alex


Koi Winners:

Alicia
Crackle
Sammie K


American Traditional Winners:

Virginia
Sarah
KC


I will be emailing winners by Monday. If you are a winner and don't hear from me, please follow up with me at best-tatto-design@gmail.com.

For those of you who didn't win, I thank you for participating and suggest you check out this amazing offer from the folks at Bonafide Bags:

We also thought we would like to reward your readers for participating and give them some incentive as well to get some bags whether they win or not. We created a discount code specifically for the readers of best-tatto-design to receive an additional 10% off any order of at least $20.  They can get the savings by entering the following code in the voucher section of the checkout page, the code is "best-tatto-design".  This code is good through March...if we want to create new designs and keep pumping them out from lots of different artists, we have to sell these to make that happen.

Please take advantage of this great offer and head over to Bonafide Bags and get some!

Thanks to all of our readers who made this giveaway so much fun for all! And thanks to the good folks at Bonafide Bags.

A Reaper for a Saturday

A couple weeks ago, I ran into Vinny at a Duane Reade on 86th Street in Brooklyn.

He had several tattoos and shared this one, on his left forearm:

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

Maori flash to real tattoo photos

Hi,

Today I received two photos, one of a customer who bought "Shoulder tattoo 150" a few weeks ago. The tattoo healed and lookes really nice.
The second tattoo is the shoulderblade design I did on february 18th, you can see the sketches and work in progress in the previous posts.
























Get back soon with some updates!

Kind regards, Mark Storm