"Mer-MAN! mer-man."

So here's Michael's shield. He's a super nice guy and brought me some bangin cinnamon rolls as a nice surprise. Here'sthe start of Robert's mermaid, which I am very pumped about doing, and I have also posted the final drawing beside it. It's heavily influenced by Craig Driscoll, I'm pretty much his number one fan. And finally, here is what I think me be my first legit half-sleeves(almost done), Phil's tree. He wanted it half dead and half alive, gnarly at the bottom and smooth at the top. The girl on the island is art by Banksy, who you should know if you're into art whatsoever.

the daily grind

I do a lot of tattoos that I don't post simply because it's the same basic crap I do day after day. Hearts. Crosses. Tribal. Names. . . Well here is some of that "crap" that I'm not too pumped on as far as the subject matter goes, but still happy with how the tattoo came out: a free-handed tribal-biomechish tear-out, a traditionalish eagle cover-up. . . and a cherub. Awww. How cute.

Mermaid

Here's a few preliminary sketches for Robert's mermaid tattoo. I like the one that's swimming up toward the surface the best. I don't want it to look realistic, I'm going for more of a Craig Driscoll look with this one. Anyway, this is really early on in the process, but I'd just thought I'd share. I'm really excited to be able to do something custom like this.

OKTOBRE pt.2

So apparently you can only upload 5 pictures at a time, which is gay. Yeah, I said gay. So here's the other two or so photos I wasn't able to upload on the last post. This was a walk-in so I only had about a hour to draw it, and an hour to tattoo it. I've noticed I've been doing a lot of blue/pink color schemes lately, I need to try something else. Sometimes it just takes a while before you catch yourself doing the same things over and over.

OKTOBRE

More taaaats. I don't really have the time to scan in all the drawings and make a lot of remarks on any of these. uh, enjoy. there is some "bonus" stuff in here for those who have already seen some of these on the ole' facebook.

from drawing to tattoo. . .

What people don't normally see in the process of getting a tattoo is all the hours spent beforehand on R and D. Research and drawing(forgive the awful pun) is just as essential as the actual tattoo itself. Now, I'm not complaining about the time spent doing this, most of the time, I am rightfully compensated. I just want the general public to know that when they do get tattooed, they are paying for a lot more behind the scenes work than they are aware of. I typically do a lot of drawings, especially if it's a subject I'm not familiar with, and really only a few make it to the final round. Some people don't really have something really specific in mind as well, so if I have the time to, I will present them with two or three options. Such is the case with William's tattoo. He said he wanted a samurai helmet with some clouds/ windbars and maybe some cherry or lotus blossoms in the background. None of the rough sketches are posted here, but the three finished sketches, the final linework sketch, and the tattoo can be seen below. This is the first session, it will probably take one more to finish.

some more shoulder progress

I did some further work on Tobias yesterday, finishing off his shoulder cap. This is the result. Some of the pics didn't turn out so well, but you get the idea.