25th + 26th april

After having one sleeve- a peacock- Rick wanted to get the other arm sleeved, no surpise there! not many people only have one sleeve, if they have, it’s usually because they haven’t got round to getting the second one done. Once you’ve started decorating your arms, untattooed skin looks well, a bit boring 🙂

So we are going for a dramatic dragon and masks design, with lots of red and black to compliment the soft blues and pinks of the other arm.
Apart from the colours and nature of the design, we are keeping the flow relatively similar, to make sure they work well together.

Aileen is working on her geisha design, we started on the fabrics of her kimono last time, today we focused on the autumn leaves and some of the grey here and there

a short session on steven’s design to add some colour

and a longer session on Brian to get the scales of his dragon finished. It’s starting to take shape now!

22n+ 23rd april

dave is getting a dragon on his calf, he already has a foo dog on his other leg, so this will be the second of a pair of tattoos that will match roughly in shape and size.

he hasn’t decided on the colours for the dragon yet

Declan is getting there, just one more finishing up session to tidy bits up here and there.
here’s the foo we worked on today

Raffaella had done some work on Carlo’s arm, in her favourite polynesian style, and today i added the rest of the sleeve on. The water will be in blues, and the gap will have a buddha head in it

 

Jude’s fox and cherry tree is coming along, next step will be to add soft grey wind with cherry blossoms blowing in it to tie everything together

15th – 19th april

Marylin has a lot of tattoos by other artists, but now I got half a back to cover in freehand flowers 😀
we got the basic shapes and shading done -Marylin sat like a rock for 4 hours- next time we will get stuck into colours and detail

Kayleigh was after a cute geisha looking over her shoulder, with waves around her. The whole thing was to have quite a traditional and authentically japanese print feel to it

I have been working on Erik’s sleeve in stages, at the moment we are working on an extension with two koi, one green and one blue, to represent his wee daughters. The daughters’ birthstones are emerald and sapphire, hence the colours. That’s a better idea than to let them choose the colours, otherwise he would most likely end up with at least one pink koi!
w are still working on the background

Matt is also getting an addition to his sleeve, he decided to go above the tribal band he has, and fill the top with more poppies. Not quite finished here yet, and need to add some more detail to the older poppies to make them blend a bit better

We nearly got all the colour done to Chris’ phoenix, bar two tail feathers. We are also talking about adding a grey cloud background now

9th-12th april

we are working on a koi and foo dog combo for scott, the basic shapes and colours are in, now just some fine tuning and more shading and detail to go. Scott asked for more muted colours for his piece, so the koi is a more burnt orange and the foo and bluey grey

Amy is a legend. She sat for 7 1/2 hours in one go for the outline last time she was in, and today we did the same with the first of the colour. wow!

another session for brian, his last one was at the tattoo convention two weeks ago where we blasted some red and orange through his dragon. I will be adding more detail to the scales of the dragon, but that can wait until next time to give it more time to completely settle. In the meantime we started on the flowers

and Chris’ sleeve is getting there, it’s wonderfully eclectic mix of things that mean something to Chis, his family background and who he is.
Today we added some background shading, adding drama to the wind and sky behind the tree. Once that has healed, i will make some adjustments to the tonal values, adding more black to the branches of the tree and hopefully to the pictish stone. However, the skin that the stone was tattooed on has a history of psoriasis, so we have to go carefully with it.
The last session will really pull this one together, I’m looking forward to it.

2nd – 5th april

Ryan was in for a session where we added some blue water to his sleeve. Ryan is doing it the other way round from the usual- his background is in colour and the koi and geisha in black and grey 🙂
this gives it a more manga style look.
the geisha is work in progress, as is the half hanya mask on the inside of the upper arm.

Another female figure piece was next, Megan wanted a depiction of the chinese goddess of vegetarianism, Kuan Yin. She is also partial to mandalas (round patterned panels), and specifically ones with a flower of life motif in them. this is going to be a jewel of a piece, with lots of colour and detail

Ross’ phoenix sleeve is pretty much done, we are now just waiting to get the darkest bits of the old tattoo lasered to lighten them a bit, so that we can incorporate that section into the whole design.
the phoenix wraps around some old work that i relined and shaded, and added some colour to help it blend in a bit better.

Tim is getting there, too! We have completed some major work on his legs and have moved back to the arms.
One day we will fix all the bumps and scrapes on his legs that have left pale patches in his black, but for now I quite like the ‘battle scars’

I did a piece for Ross a while ago, and having lived with it, he now wanted it to expand a bit in all directions, which we did today

First timer Alec was after a chinese dragon, in black and grey, with lots of drama

28th- 30th march, scottish tattoo convention

second session on Aileens geisha, we decided to jump in with some of the detailling on the kimono, as the fabrics are going to be the main feature here and we just couldn’t wait 🙂

David got some colour in his piece, just the lotus at the top to go, colour is up to me apparently, but nothing too wild. Ha!

the friday I was working at the edinburgh tattoo convention, which is the biggest day in the scottish tattoo scene. It’s in it’s fourth year now, and going from strength to strength, so i was looking forward to it.

I had Brian booked in for a session on his dragon sleeve, it was a nice piece to be working on, as it’s his second sleeve by me and as the new dragon sleeve was designed to compliment the original one, his tattoos have quite an impact now

here’s a picture someone else took of me and Brian

and photos i took of his sleeve

after Brian i tattooed Darrell, we are working on a japanese style eagle, which will form the top part of a backpiece. We had already outlined the piece, so today we worked on the colouring

I didn’t really take any photos of the convention, but people have been posting pictures on the convention facebook page, which is here
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Scottish-Tattoo-Convention/166517580048001

I did take a photo of one of our neighbours, because of his banner- but i didn’t ask him about his international activities….

the next day I had planned something a bit different, me and Nik were going to set up a still life and do some painting, instead of tattooing. When I’m busy working on a tattoo, people generally don’t approach me to chat, and i miss out on the social aspect of the convention, and if you are not careful, the whole convention just whizzes past and before you know it everyone is packed up and gone, and all you’ve done is work.

I thought that if i was only painting, i could stop and chat, wander away and socialise if i wanted, and generally have less pressure on me. (that’s not the way to make money, but hey)

So we did, and it was a really good day. I did get to chat to people a lot more, and had a look about the convention.
We set up a still life with a skull, a Boba fett helmet ( calculated move to get the geek vote) and a wine glass. Nik’s way of working is completely different from mine, but together we seemed to generate a fair bit of interest, so job done 🙂
I’m even going to have a short interview in Total Tattoo magazine, they took pictures of me with my palette and brushes, always good for the ego…

here’s is what I painted, and Nik’s piece

All in all, a great time was had. I enjoyed hosting three artists during the run up and the show, Dank henk, and the girls from Skullduggery tattoo in Belfast stayed with me and we had us a tattootastic time 🙂