Slow days on 4th street

So yesterday and today i'm working at our 4th street Body Graphics. Yesterday I got to do one walk-in, a small little high heel. This chick was really nice and we did it small and simple with a little grey shading. The pic isn't the greatest but it'll do for now.

I felt confident doing this one since it was so small, and she liked it too.


Then today I had the lovely Kim from over at Infinite to come by for a small pin up girl so that I can get more practice. I didn't need as much black in this one because it's mostly skin tones but I did put some grey in the shadows and used a tiny bit of black. This tattoo was alot of fun to do. I took my time and didn't rush, and she let me do whatever I want with the shading.

Overall this tattoo went well... her skin was great so I didn't really have any trouble with the linework. As for the shading, I had a little bit of machine trouble and had to switch shaders. I have to get used to the fact that my machine bogs down when I use thick colors. I also got to try out this peach color that a coworker of mine mixed up. Other than the bleeding in the hair area I hope that the blonde in the hair stays, thats when I started having the troubles. After I was finished with this I messed with my shaders again and I think theyre running much better now.

BIG thanks to Kim for donating some skin for me, and I'll be sure to post healed pics as soon as I can.

Hopefully we get more walkins tonight.... we haven't had one all day... probably the rain :(

See Emily's Foot Tattoo

I met Emily in Penn Station and asked her about this, one of her three tattoos:

The phrase "Be not afraid, only believe" is from the Bible, more specifically, the Book of Mark, Chapter 5, Verse 36, King James version.

What does this mean to Emily? "No matter what," she said, "always remember what's mean to be will happen...".

A nice sentiment indeed. This tattoo was done by "Petey" at Immortal Ink in Clinton, New Jersey.

Thanks to Emily for sharing her tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

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Repost: Whole Lotta Rosary

This post originally appeared here, three years ago on March 6, 2008:

So it was another Saturday night in Bay Ridge and we had just got home from a friend's house. The kids were getting ready for bed. My youngest, Shayna, was having a birthday party the next day. We were pretty much set on the party planning, but needed gift bags for party favors.

I headed off to the 24-hour Duane Reade, six blocks away. By the time I arrived, there were already a half-dozen things added to my list. I grabbed a cart (although in Brooklyn they refer to it as a wagon) and was somewhere in the haircare section (shampoo for kids) when two young ladies walked by.

I had brought, as always, my best-tatto-design folder with fliers in it, along with my camera, despite the fact that it was cold and in the thirties. But one can never be too prepared. These women were dressed for the clubs, coatless, bare-armed, and high-heeled. I spotted a tattoo on one of the women's feet.

I thought about asking her then and there about it, but I balked. These were two attractive young women in a drugstore late at night and I wasn't up for the challenge of being scrutinized as a creep.

Besides, I reasoned, it's only a rosary tattoo. Nothing extraordinary about that. Let me just leave them alone, I thought, they're obviously headed to some club.

But I ran into them/passed them a couple more times and, each time, I cursed myself more for being too cowardly to ask. So what if its just a rosary? Here at best-tatto-design, it's not just about the ink, but about the story behind the ink.

I was at the front part of the store, trying to decide which individually-wrapped candies would be the least damaging to my children's teeth (for the party bags), when they headed my way, on their way out of the store. I figured, "what the heck?" and asked the young lady about her tattoo.



This was not the first tattoo I took a picture of. Before I knew it, woman said "Wanna see a sick tattoo?" And she turned around and lifted the back of her shirt up to reveal, indeed, this very sick tattoo:



Wow. Sweet. Which just goes to show, best-tatto-design Rule #1: Don't dismiss the "ordinary" tattoo. There may be extraordinary ones just out of sight!

Her name is Layla and she was very cool. I snapped the above shot and then asked if I could take the rosary one as well, since that's what caused me to stop and talk to her.

Both were inked by her friend Vito at King's County Tattoo Co.. She got the rosary modeled after Nicole Richie's tattoo. The awesome lower back piece she inked when she was 19. She was young and rebelling against her parents, she said, and she didn't want a small lower back tattoo like everyone else had, she wanted something big and bold. Check out this detail:


It's beautiful work.

I noticed that she also had a cross on her left forearm and I gave my standard best-tatto-design patter: check out the blog in a few days, and feel free, if you like what you see, to email me if she wants to share more of her ink with the world.

I turned to her friend, , and said, naively, and when you get a tattoo, let me know, and I'll put yours on too. She proudly replied, "I have seven already." Silly me, and then I noticed the rosary on her right foot.



Like Layla, Lisa's rosary tattoo is inspired by Nicole Richie's. In fact, Lisa said, hers is an exact replica of Nicole Richie's (below):


I extended the same offer: if you like what you see on the blog, let me know, we can always have you come back as a recurring tattoo feature.

I thanked both ladies and they headed out while I went back to searching for the elusive gift bags.

Thanks to Layla and Lisa for their willingness to put their night on hold, and sharing their tattoos!

Back to Philly

Heres an update on the stuff I've done since I left Hawaii. I got to work add onto this guy's dragon the day before I left the island. He walked in an hour before I was about to pack up. Talk about good timing! We added a tail and I got to touch up a few areas that were a little light. It's really interesting to see how it healed and what I should improve on.

Yesterday was my first day back in Philly... worked at No Ka Oi and it was super busy!! This was the first walk-in, a really nice woman who originally wanted this in color and then once we finished the outline decided to stick with that. I'm not entirely excited about this one, I felt like my lines could have been a little better and I have to admit that I was super nervous working on the floor there. So intimidating to finally be working with all these amazing artists. I felt like after I finished this one I calmed down a bit. Gotta work on my breathing so my anxiety doesn't get the best of me.

Thanks to my good friend (and our sales girl) Rachel - I was booked all night last night! This tattoo went MUCH better than that last back of the neck I did. Her skin was great and she sat good too.

This girl came in next. She got one on each wrist.

Later on in the night this group of three came in. One girl got this on her wrist.

The second kid wanted this wawa bird on his inner bicep. He also had great skin for this and I felt much more confident with my linework. We varied the line thickness too which he liked.

The last guy of the night and third from the group wanted a Sailor Jerry inspired mermaid sitting on a pot of gold. I drew this up for him and he let me do whatever I wanted.

Im going to meet with Bill today and talk about how I colored this. I should have put more color in the tail.

More to come!

best-tatto-design Weekend Recap, March 4, 2011

Mixing it up here on best-tatto-design as I anxiously look toward spring and the third annual Tattooed Poets Project.

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One of the things I've taken to doing from time to time is googling "tattoo" and watching the "real time" feed, mostly tweets that appear and get swept up by the google logarithms.

How else would I have found about DMBTattoo.com, billed as "A Dave Matthews Band Tattoo Collection Site"? This reminds me, of course of Tattooed Everything, a site dedicated to Pearl Jam tattoos, which seems to have vanished.

Of course, this parlays into my best-tatto-design scenario of a semi-regular feature, yet to be launched, called Garden Ink, which will be posts that stem from my close proximity, Monday through Friday, to Madison Square Garden.

Rather than spotting ink, the idea is to seek it out, on days that there are events at the Garden, the world's most famous arena. This means approaching people who are not necessarily visibly inked and asking them if they have tattoos specific to whoever is at the Garden that night. I did  this once, successfully, here, with a Green Day fan. The idea recently resurfaced when the 'hood was besieged by Little Monsters waiting to see Lady Gaga.

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And finally, just when I thought I'd seen it all with Ed Hardy lighters, earlier this week I found, wait for it, Ed Hardy Hand Sanitizer! It actually smells not half bad.

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Tattoos I Know: A Medley from Maida

It's safe to say that Maida has been a fan of best-tatto-design from its earliest days.

Over the last three years, a day generally doesn't go by without our discussing ink. As a co-worker, and a friend, she's a regular visitor to the site.

Which is why one might wonder why her tattoos have taken this long to appear on best-tatto-design. I even recall discussing with her potential designs as she researched new ideas.

We always talked about me taking pictures, but it never came to fruition.

However, yesterday the stars aligned and we got our collective acts together. Let's take a look, shall we?

I'm starting with my favorite pair of the three she is sharing (out of four, in all):

These two are pretty cool, and the top one. a triquetra, I remember her spending a lot of time thinking about.
She feels that it also acts as protection, warding off the evil eye:

Below that is a butterfly that is not your standard design. The wings' patterns resemble skulls:

Maida says this dual image, the softness of the butterfly and the roughness of the skulls, represents the two sides of life, and is a double-edged sword. The kanji represent the symbols for power (top) and strength (bottom).

Maida also shared this tattoo on the outside of her right calf, above the ankle:

Maida got this, along with her friend Kathy, as a testament to "the strong bond and love between two best friends". They each have it on the same spot, although Kathy's butterfly has lavender wings, whereas Maida's are turquoise.

All of Maida's tattoos above were inked by an artist named JStar, whose website is here. The site includes photos of more of her work and is well worth a look.

Thanks to Maida for sharing her tattoos with us here, finally, on best-tatto-design! We look forward to seeing more in the future!

Erika's Ink: Something Old and Something New

On Sunday, spring-like temperatures made being outside enticing. I was heading home when I spotted, from a good fifty yards away, a young lady approaching. Even from that distance, I noticed her bare calves and the discernable mark of a tattoo above her left ankle.

So, as she approached, I slowed down to talk to her. When I asked her about the tattoo, she indicated that I had stopped her before, which puzzled me, as I didn't recognize the ink. She then clarified that her right arm hosted a honeycomb sleeve, with bees. Since it was covered, I didn't recognize her.

I first met Erika in July 2009 and stopped her after she walked by me on the street. At the time, she said that the sleeve was a work in progress, and she'd rather not have it posted. I asked if I could take a picture anyway, and promised it wouldn't go live until she was done with the art.

I believe I ran into her (or maybe just saw her on the subway) last summer, and the sleeve still amazed me.

So here, on the last Sunday in February, she was again. Since her arm was covered, I asked if I could take a picture of the tattoo I had spotted on her ankle. She agreed, although she qualified it as one of her oldest tattoos:

Erika said this piece is about 15 years old and called it an omkara or aumkara. That would be an om symbol floating above a lotus flower.

She also said that she had not had any more work done on the sleeve and she didn't mind sharing it at this stage of the game. The artist is in Portland, Maine, so it's not easy to just go and get it periodically updated.

Here's the sleeve covering the upper two thirds of Erika's arm:

Definitely worth taking a closer look at the details:

The artist of this honeycomb and her "killer bees" is Chris Dingwell of Sanctuary Tattoo.

Thanks to Erika for sharing one of her older tattoos, as well as this phenomenal sleeve-in-progress!