Best Tatto Design

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Maria Shares a Valuable Wing

Last month I met Maria on the West 4th Street subway platform. She had this interesting tattoo on the upper right side of her back, and I was curious:

Maria explains:

"I'm a big gamer, and my favorite video game of all time is Super Mario Brothers 3. The P-Wing is the one item you always wanted to get."

Maria credited Rich Smith at Thicker Than Water Tattoo on the Lower East Side as the artist who gave her this wing.

My own appreciation for it it it's originality in contrast to the more common inking of angel wings on backs.

Thanks to Maria for sharing her wing with us here on 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.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Danny's La Pietà, for the Love of Art

I met Danny last month across the street from Verdi Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

He had quite a lot of nice ink, and we focused on this piece, tattooed on the inside of his upper left arm:

This is based on Michelangelo's Pietà, the famous sculpture in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

Why does Danny have this, and other classic art, inked on his flesh? I'll let him explain:

"To be honest with you, I'm really into the Italian sculptors ... all [my] gray-scale pieces are ... purely art-based decisions. The only tattoos I have that have real significant meaning behind them are the words, you know, anything that's got words. All the art, it's just because I love the art."

Danny also has tattoos that are based on the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

To recreate a masterpiece of Italian sculpture like La Pietà, in such fine detail, is truly remarkable.

Joshua Lord, at East Side Ink in Manhattan, is the artist who so skillfully created this tattoo. Joshua Lord's work has appeared previously on best-tatto-design here and work from East Side Ink has been posted here several times, viewable under this tag.

Thanks to Danny for sharing his amazing work with us here on best-tatto-design!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Veronica Reveals What's Under Her Sleeve

Running an errand in SoHo two weeks ago found me hopping on an R train at Canal Street, which is not my normal routine. Sometimes a break in a routine can be rewarding.

Sitting on the train was Veronica, who had this intriguing ink running out from under her left shirt sleeve:

What is that? I wondered. A tree? Curious, I asked her about it and was rewarded with not only the answer, but a photo of a pretty spectacular tattoo:

Veronica explained that she had seen an exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta that featured jellyfish with really cool lighting effects that brought out these sea creatures fluorescence. She went to see Gustavo Rizerio at Invisible NYC and this beautiful tattoo was the end result. Here's a clip of what she was talking about:

I also learned, coincidentally, while talking to Veronica, that her sister Leyna, had appeared here on best-tatto-design back in June 2010!

Thanks to Veronica for sharing her beautiful jellyfish with us here on best-tatto-design!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Inkspotting: The Creep Factor

There’s a fine line in what I do: I could easily fall into the “creepy” category. And I’m not talking about my full-time vocation as a Human Resources Manager.

Look, I exercise significant restraint to avoid being perceived as a Creep by the subjects I approach in public. Granted, there are some folks with predisposed notions that, by the mere fact that I am an older male approaching younger women and asking them about designs on their flesh, I have already crossed over to The United States of Creephood. But for the most part, I am able to avoid that trap.

One of my cardinal rules, and one that any loyal reader of this site can affirm, is that I do not ask about lower back tattoos, or about ink along the waistline. When one is offered to me, I am more than happy to include it in a post, but I generally avoid that section of the body, for obvious reasons. The most shining example is here.

Trickier are chest pieces, but I usually will build a rapport with a contributor before asking if they’re comfortable allowing me to photograph the area. This post was inspired by a woman I met on Tuesday, who had a simply gorgeous cluster of flowers along her neckline that I would have loved to share here on the site. I’m still holding out hope that she may send me a photo, as she was not keen on me taking a picture of her chest in the James A. Farley Post office (understandably so). I haven’t heard from her yet, but I’m still holding out hope, as it was a stunning floral tattoo.

The problem is, especially for women, that there are so many creeps out there, who judge tattooed women without even knowing them. A great discussion on this can be found here, from contributor Emily at xoJane.com. People who know me know that I am a nice guy, and go to great pains to avoid the Creep label, which is why it pains me so much to be treated like one, just because I was brave enough to approach someone about their ink.

But, if I am going to keep producing best-tatto-design, I will have to continue wearing my heart on my un-tattooed (as of now) sleeve, and know that my friendly approach will continue to have success, but there will always be people who will think I’m a Creep. So be it.

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.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Kristina: Aon Grá

Over the summer, we were having a yard sale, when Kristina stopped by to peruse the goods. She shared this, one of her four tattoos:

Located on the inside of her right arm, the phrase "aon grá" is Irish for "one love". This decorative tattoo with a powerful message was tattooed by Rob at Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge. Work from the shop which, due to its close proximity to "home base" for best-tatto-design, has appeared often over the years on the site, and can be seen here.

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

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

two days til Vegas!

So some interesting tattoos have come in lately... which is a good thing! Very excited for this weekend... heading to Vegas for the very first time!

This one was a walkin done in NJ, this is a version of her husband's badge... who has since passed on. Definitely a challenge, lots of gold and blue. Got to experiment with color and another challenge was all that lettering, some of which is really small! Looking back of course there's a few things I would have changed/done differently, however she was very happy with it and I got to do a badge. I asked her to come in when it's healed so I can see how the blue turned out and put some more highlights in there. Really cool lady, hope to see her back soon.

This was a walkin from a month ago over in NJ... we did the outline the first time and he stopped in to get some color... really excited about this one, never tattooed a Koi before. I really enjoyed this tattoo, however I feel as though more shading is needed... I'm going to work on more sketches of koi and color studies to perfect this....

This was a fixup/ add on. She came in with the name already there (see below) and wanted some filligree stuff and a heart added, as well as clean up the exsisting tattoo...

I was working 4th street the other day when my friend/client Steve stopped in to get more added onto his poly 1/2 sleeve we started. Very excited about this tattoo.. I get to try my hand at more polynesian style and have some fun doing my thing! We added a section to it, start to finish. Here is the drawing before we got started.....

Finished product... had some fun with this one... can't wait to add more to cap off his shoulder and touch up the eyeball dude... definitely an interesting tattoo!

View from the back

A walkin in NJ the other day... this is a band logo and he wanted drumsticks behind it. The lettering could be more perfect, however he did give me some artistic license with the design a little bit so overall we were both happy with it. He plans on getting more work on this arm soon so I can get a good luck at those letters again....

Walkin in NJ as well... this is still my problem area when tattooing... can never get the best stretch! However I think after doing a bunch of these I've found a method that works best for me...

So this one is definitely an interesting design. I met this guy over at No Ka Oi about a week ago, we discussed the design he wanted, an infinity type symbol in blue with two happy faces inside the loops. He was very specfic about what he wanted, so after a week of emails and sketches and color studies this is what we came up with. I had some fun with this one because I love to draw faces, and fun ones at that! It gave me a chance to play around with the caricature-type style faces and put a bit of me into this design. I'm really happy with this one and so was he.

I'm down at the South Street shop today, not too busy of a day so far. A couple walked in wanting a word on their wrists, so Clay and I both did one, here's mine... Clay's awesome script skills at work :) Forgive the crappy photo, damn iphone 3G certainly doesn't live up to the standards these days......

I did this one yesterday while I NJ.... the expression "early bird gets the worm" certainly applied yesterday. I'm usually on time for work, or a bit late depending on how my morning goes... and I decided to get in a bit early yesterday because I have my trip coming up and hey, ya never know what could come in... good thing i did. He was waiting outside the minute I pulled up. Lucky me :)

More to come! I'll be posting more soon!

Julianne's Owl

I spotted Julianne on the 36th Street train platform in Brooklyn last month and struck up a conversation about her ink. She has eleven tattoos and offered up one of her more recent ones, this owl on her shin:

This was inked by Justin Stephan at A Stroke of Genius Tattoos in Boca Raton, Florida. I like the shop's website because not only was I able to find the tattoo in the artist's gallery, but Justin also commented on the piece a little, saying this was "a cool owl tattoo I did on a walk-in, she was a champ, sat like a rock, the tattoo is in the middle of her shin...".

Julianne likes owls and this is one of her favorite tattoos.

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