Tattooing large scale tattoos is always a pleasure. It’s a long process, but a worthy one. Personally, I don’t think enough people talk about the process–there’s such a focus on finishing tattoos, and showing off the final, perfect product.
These days, awareness of how long tattoos take is limited, contributing to the growing view of tattooing not as an art form and practice, but a commodity. Yet there’s much more to tattooing than just the final product, which we hope to demonstrate by posting these project updates. A whole heap of blood, sweat and tears went into bringing these pieces of art to life, permanently, across skin.
A few weeks ago we posted about Lauren’s sleeve start, and here’s the update. Ian spent some time in the morning drawing in the remaining linework around the inner bicep, then finished off the day with a considerable portion of the solid black background filled in. Lauren’s previously been tattooed by James (a whole leg sleeve!) and has always sat well, and this time was no different. Next time Lauren is in, we’ll have to grab some pictures of it.
I’m itching to see the petals of the chrysanthemum filled in–it’s beautiful already, but the additional line work Ian filled in this session adds such depth to the sleeve. Between you and me, Lauren and I also share the same taste in reading, which makes her a top 10 client. I hope she never runs out of skin to tattoo <3
While we unfortunately don’t have photos of the tattoo before, we do have a few shots of the tattoo right at the end. Brad’s original tattoo joined Tribal and Japanese elements, covering from just above the elbow to some of the back and the whole right pec. The plan was to completely cover the bicep/shoulder with a koi fish, while the ink on Brad’s chest was reworked. The flowers represent himself, his wife and children. Min refreshed the colours, and redid the background to give the whole tattoo a solid, consistent appearance.
Brad’s tattoo has given us so many good picture op’s, like below.
Overall this was a challenging but satisfying transformation, and Brad was a good sport throughout it all. He even brought us and made us Greek coffee to sample and gifted Min a little coffee pot! Thanks Brad, that was great.
Christian’s rib tattoo is still in the early stages. They just had the first session, spent completing the basic outline and hand-drawing in all of the details. It was a rough, rough morning for Christian but he left happy (as happy as someone in incredible pain could be), with another appointment locked in for a few weeks from now. Shin’s samurai looks just like a painting, and the whole tattoo flows nicely along the ribs. I haven’t seen rib placement before for this kind of tattoo, and am very impressed with it!
Taking pictures in Shin’s station is often difficult because he’s tucked away in a small corner of the studio, but this time I think they came out pretty well! Though, that may be Shin’s strong tattooing skill shining through.
Lily’s been chipping away at Rebecca’s floral and mandala sleeve for a few months now, so you may have already seen a few of these pictures. Thankfully it’s no hardship to look again, so here it is.
Rebecca already had some work done on her outer bicep, so Lily is extending that work and finishing off the sleeve. Roses and lilies make up most of the floral details on this sleeve, fitting nicely with the mandalas. My favourite part of this sleeve is the mandala centred right over the inner elbow–a painful spot, I’ve heard, but the resting ink is beautiful in its small, precise details. Though, Rebecca has reported that this has been a pretty tolerable experience, pain-wise, with the exception of the inner wrist area.
Writing this article, it occurred to me that we don’t actually have any pictures of the outer arm, which is a shame. We’ll have to get on top of that next time she’s in. They’ve got 1-2 sessions to go, and then this project will be a wrap.
The small details at the wrist, the contrast brought by the dark shading, is so satisfying.
That’s all we’ve got for large projects this week. A range of projects from a few artists, different in many ways but still a labour love in the end. Thanks as always to all of our awesome clients who come up with these ideas. We couldn’t do it without you!