Pics n' Thoughts 7

MAMA'S PRAYER

This guy brought this in.  It's a prayer his Grandma used to say.  She passed away and he wanted her prayer to live on.  He likes his tattoo.  It's not up to my standard.  I really was unhappy with it.  Some of it is his fault but the truth is it's always the tattooer's fault too.  I probably should not have taken this job the way it is.  This guy is pretty small and very skinny.  Every time he would breathe in, which he did rapidly and frequently during the tattoo in response to the pain, it would move his chest.  This made it almost impossible to get letters that small out perfectly.  I could literally feel and see his heart beating through his chest.   By the time I was done I was physically, mentally and as corny as it sounds, emotionally exhausted because every time a letter gets a wiggle in it that will make the word illegible your heart sinks, and you start sweatin' BEADS!

What I should have done differently.  First of all, if he's not willing to get this some where that won't move when he breathes (ie; leg, back, arm as apposed to the chest or ribs) I'd advise the customer to get it bigger, or just not do it at all.  He may just pick some of his favorite lines or something instead of the whole thing.   I had a hard time with ink draining out of the tube onto the piece.  I ordered some new tubes today that I hope will eliminate that in the future.  If it works I'll post pics of them.  I think the problem comes from oversized tips on the liner.

Pics n' Thoughts 6

I got Nikko Hurtado's instructional DVD for father's day and I want to use his technique to tattoo this lioness on my wife.  I already used his stenciling technique to create this drawing, well, a modified variation of it anyway.  I definitely have the confidence to pull this off and if I'm successful I will be doing colored portraits in no time.  I think I'd do better at this type of tattoo than other tattoos with more line work.

Here's my current challenge.... fix/ cover this.  I have no idea what to do with it... thank God this kid's down with ANYTHING.

In two days I'm going to attempt tattooing this all the way around a guys arm... kind of nervous about it... I'll post pics...  Nikko Hurtado  gives the recipe for his stencil solution in his video, I've tried it out a couple of times now and it's pretty impressive.  I'll definitely have to use it on this piece.  I spent many hours (like 2) writing this out.  It's actually pretty huge, 3/4" letters, each row is a little over 13" long.  It's pretty much going to be a half sleeve of script.  I should be pretty good at letters by the time I'm done with this.  I know the rows aren't spaced well, I'm going to cut them into strips and wrap them around the guy's arm... I'll cry if he flakes.

This is a carebear with a cubs logo on it's belly.  I think the "C" is shit but the rest is as good as a 4" care bear can be... sadly this is probably the most interesting and colorful tattoo I've had the opportunity to do at Rochester Tattoo.

This is a font.  It came out pretty clean.  I was trying to create the thick/thin effect as I went but I had to go back and clean up almost all of it.

I hope I get a chance to see this healed.  I used some watered down smoke colored (eternal color) ink in the metal part, in some of the highlight areas, hoping to create a metal look.  I hope it works out OK.  I had a ton of fun on this one.   It took 2.5 hours.  I used a bugpin 7mag in the medallion and a 7 mag on the rest.  I used a 5 liner to shade in some detail but didn't outline any of it.   It's not as big as it looks in the pic,  the whole thing fits on a sheet of regular paper.  The customer is pretty cut, but he's actually a little guy.  He sat like a rock though.

This is flash.  Another artist traced the line work for me,  I hate it.  I used an 8 round for the whole thing.

I did a belly button piercing this week.  It's terrible.  The licensed piercer marked it.  It is way crooked and off center.  I wish I cared more about piercing... it would be nice to have the extra money.  I just have a really hard time getting into it.




Well that's it for now; thanks for reading!

Pics n' Thoughts 5

Liner: 3 rd
Shader: 9 rd
Time: 1 hr
Price: $125
This is a design she found online.  It's pretty small but I took my sweet ass time trying to make it clean and crisp and solid.  I also did a little experimenting on it because it's solid black so I figured it would be pretty easy to clean it up if I made a mistake.  I out lined it first with a 3 rd.  Normally I would use the biggest needle I thought I could get my little points sharp with (which would be a 7 or 8 in this case), but I haven't had a chance to run a 3 since I've been back to tattooing and I wanted to give it a shot.  It wasn't such a good idea because I pretty much repulled most of the lines while filling it in with my round shader.  I also played around with shading, trying multiple techniques, the tight little circles, the brush stroke (long line up, long line down, long line up, long line down), the snow shovel thing where you kind of go forward 5mm, back 2mm, forward 5mm.  None of it really made a difference.  I did ask her to MMS me a healed pic.  I've been doing that with most of my customers lately so I can be sure their tats look good.  Oh yeah, this lady wanted her tattoo upside down, I explained to her the orientation, but this is more and more common, usually with women, I think it's because their naturally narcissistic.  (JK)  Took an hour, she paid a buck twenty five and claimed to love it.

Liner: 7 rd
Time: 45 min (she could have had it done faster if she would sit still)
Price: $75
AAAAAaaarrrughgh!! I swear this script looked cool on paper but the lady could not sit still!  I swear you would think she was on meth or something the way she kept moving.  I thought she'd be tough, she had a tattoo on her face!  She literally stood up after every dip and I tried my hardest to salvage it but I was doomed from the start. 

Liner: 5 rd
Shader: 9 mag
Time: 30 min
Price: $50
I have to admit, I've never been great at line work.  This line work is pretty shaky:/  If I do not lose focus for even a fraction of a second I can do better.  This was pretty big, like 2.5 x 6 maybe, it only took half an hour though.  Pretty simple.  That gray is Eternal's "smoke".  It's kind of a blue gray and I LOVE IT.  Too bad I haven't had a chance to use it on something more artistic.

Liner: 7 rd     

Shader: 9 mag

Time: 45 min on the first one and 30 on the second

Price: $150 total

These are "matching" green and blue lightning bolt yin-yang tattoos.  Not much to say really.  I was a little disapointed in Eternal's "toxic green".  I think it was really thin and hard to put in solid.  It looks bright as hell in the bottle.  I lined these, then went back and ran white under the cracks and blended the colors over the white into the black which I had feathered near the crack lines so  the colors will look the brightest in the center.  They are supposed to send me healed pics too.  Hope they do.

 This is a lioness I drew up tonight.  I want to tattoo it on Stephanie (my wife).  I think I could actually do better on this style of tattoo than the N7 tattoo (above).  Not quite ready for tattooing yet.  Needs some more work.  I'll draw it one more time first.

Pics n' Thoughts 4

I only did the bull dog on this.  The customer was difficult,  a really nice guy but he was very particular about the design.  I wish I could have a healed pic of this one.  It's going to be covered in an inch of chest hair eventually.  I should have balanced the face a little better and the bow tie too.  That would have made it look a lot cleaner.   

This is an all white tattoo.  I tried to talk her out of it but she wanted it the way it is.  She wanted it to be hard to see and to look like some of the scars on her arm.  She was an older lady, older than me anyway.  She's happy with it.  One thing I was having trouble with was the ink staying white.  For some reason the white ink would pick up a faint gray tone after I dipped the needle in it a few times.  I can't imagine why, I ultrasonic, and scrub the hell out of my tubes then inspect them very carefully before autoclave them so it can't be residual ink.  The tubes and needles I use are top quality surgical stainless steel, I don't think there is metal/chemical reaction changing the color.  It's really subtle, but there's no question, the ink was graying when I touched it again.

Dwayne

I like to hand write names and short sayings.  This one's about 6-8 inches.  I did it for $50.  It took 10min.

Alright, this is the last one for today.  These old ladies are cool!  They're both in their 60's. The one on the left was driving past a tattoo shop shortly after she turned 57 and said to her self, "I'm gonna try that out."  Now she has half a dozen little ones and she talked her buddy there on the right into getting one on her hand!  They were acting like a couple of teenage kids in the shop having a grand time and really enjoying life!  Pleasure to meet you ladies!

Pics n Thoughts 2

I rocked this out super fast with a 7 round.  I did it for 50 bucks.  It would have been 200 in Vegas.  I'm pretty happy with it except that I should have spent more time spacing the letters better.  I don't like the "C" much. I also told the customer that the font would stand well on it's own without being filled in and now that I look back at it I don't know if that's true.  It should be solid black or shaded, or at least have a much thicker outline.  Also just for the record, "ROCKVAM" is a bad ass last name!



This girl went to Autonomy, another shop in town with a reputation for being "the best" (they are pretty good, but their reputation comes from one single artist).  They told her she couldn't get this done unless it was big enough to go from her armpit to her belt line.  At least that's what the customer says they said.  If that's true it's weird.  OK, so I really enjoyed this.  It's just a computer font, but on something like this straight and legible is more important than style because the poem is the art.  The tattooer's job here is not to stroke his/own ego by expressing their artistic uniqueness, but to put a flawless and clear tattoo on the customer.  I failed.  I mean it's pretty good but it would have been better if I had done all the thick and thins as I went instead of going back to do them.  Also the word "our" was a correction for a type-o.  I accidentally typed the word "out" there and didn't realize it until I started writing the "t".  Extremely embarrassing.  I pointed it out to the customer.  She hadn't noticed it.  I should have gave her the whole tattoo for free after that (and let her slap me).  Lesson learned.  I have proof read the hell out of everything I've done since and had the customer do the same!

 This is a "traditional" style mermaid.  I haven't drawn a lot of traditional designs but this one came out OK.  The guy loved it, but then he stood me up for his next appointment which was to change the shading around that tattoo above it.  I was really looking forward to seeing it healed out.  I wish I would have had more time to draw this out.  I know I could have reformed it a bit.

Just some script and a dog paw.  Again, not terrible but my script is a bit rusty and that paw aint nuthin' special either.  $50 quick and simple.  I think some of those tails maybe too low on the foot.  Into that thick skin.  Tattoos don't heal too well there.

Kanji.  I think it says "fast boat".  This guy think it says, "no matter what happens, family comes first".  I tattooed this with my Pulse machine.  First time using it.  This machine was amazing.  I loved it.  It was so powerful it's like riding a motorcycle around on the customer's arm.  I know I will see this one healed too cause he comes in frequently.

This is a BEFORE and AFTER thing.  The original tattoo says "White American Bitch" in Arabic.  I guess it was a joke tattoo, she doesn't think it's funny anymore and she wanted it covered up with a "cool design".  This is what I came up with after half an hour of sketching on her foot.  She was happy.




Alright it's 3am.  I'm tired enough to give sleeping a shot.  I have more pics to blog about tomorrow.  Even though I haven't done crap in 3 days.  Good night and thanks for reading.  Please leave me a comment if you're seeing this!

Pics n Thoughts 1

These are pictures of a tattoo I actually did out of my house before I started at Rochester Tattoo. It was a wedding present. This guy had a tribally lion T-shirt he liked the design on it and wanted his arm to have a similar style.  I was pretty happy with it, but the placement is weird because the lion's face is on the inside so when you see the tattoo it just looks like a bunch of random ass swirls and lines.  Also, people keep asking him when  he's going to get it finished.  The customer loves it.

These are supposed to be crow wings.  I like the placement and size.  I also thought it was cool to work some other colors into the wings, like the blues and purples.  I tried really hard to put a lot of detail in the feathers which may have been a mistake.  I also don't believe they look much like wings.  I was so focused on the feathers that it just looks like a spread of feathers and doesn't have enough of the wing form.  Simplifying this design would have made it much nicer.  She says she loves it.  I should really ask her to stop by the shop so I can see it healed.  This girl sat like a champ! 

This is the first traditional design I've done (strictly/classical traditional).  It was actually really fun and I think that every tattooer should do a little traditional work.  It really builds a foundation for developing designs with balance and clean lines.  I traced the flash transfer exactly, that's why the hands suck so much.  Also I was too lazy to rotate the pic, sorry.

I outlined this in an hour with a 14 round.  I drew it on his back with a marker.  It's OK.  I really hope he comes back to get more work done so I can improve it a bit.  The two A's aren't close enough to identical and I don't like some other things about it.  I really wish I would have spent more time designing this.  It's not very good. 

These two guys came in together and had these drawings with them.  The top one is supposed to be the symbol from the movie Alien and the other one is a wiggly colorful tribal design.  I should have modified the tribal design.  He said he wanted it EXACTLY like his painting, I should have cleaned it up anyway.  One huge mistake I didn't notice when he was sitting in front of me is in the upper right area of the yellow there is some blue ink that mixed with the yellow and made a green spot.  Also the black in the far left branch comes in too far.  This guy loved his tattoo and I know they say that's all that matters but I hate this thing and I'm glad I have a picture of it to remind me to take my time and think ahead.

His last name is Himle (pronounced "him lee")This guy sat for 5 hours and this is his first tattoo.  I thought he was going to die at the end there.  I know I could have done it faster if I had different tools available.  The only machines I had available at the time were the ones I use for a small configuration liner and the one I use for gray shading and I had to do the whole thing with a 7 mag.  Now I have a Pulse machine that runs like a damn V8 engine and I could push this whole thing in with 13 mags probably in half the time.  I noticed that the "M" in the middle looks shorter than the rest of the letters.  It's because the letter tapers off to the points at the top and the points of the taper are the same height as the top of the "I" and the "L".  That's something to take into account.  The points should probably have come up taller so the letter balanced out well.  I may not have that problem when using a real font instead of making up letters.  I'm really interested in taking a typography class next semester.  I think this guy's almost healed.  I know he doesn't want a touch-up so he's scared to come in but I may be able to get him to send me a pic. 

This picture was taken after the tattoo healed.

Alright.  That's it for now.  I'll keep posting.

Tattoo blog 6/13/12

I've been working at Rochester Tattoo for about a month or so.  It's not at all like Vegas.  Business is slow, and a lot of people are getting, like, tractor and hunting logos.  I also had a guy ask me about a barbwire armband for the first time in my life.  I've done a couple big cool tattoos, but only on co-workers for free.  Well, one co-worker, he's a young noob and he's still really exited about getting covered up.  I like it though because it's a perfect opportunity to "knock the rust off" and get back into the flow.  Other than that I just do little stuff.  I'm going to post some pictures, I've been taking pics of everything, even little simple stuff, mostly for this blog and so I can look back to see if I'm improving or if I can see a trend in a specific type of flaw.  I've also found that it keeps me driven because I want to treat every tattoo like it's going in my portfolio.

In the last two days I've made 25 bucks.  Lame!  That's like working for a buck and a half an hour.  I used the time to hang some art up in my station and work on a drawing of something I'd like to tattoo.  Here's a little vid clip of my station and the studio.  I took the "free sex" sticker off the tool box BTW.  It's been there since I was younger, now I think it's just kind of stupid.  Before I got there they had NO art hanging on the wall.  There's a Japanese style fan on one wall with a clipper and some dolphins and outdated flash racks.  That's it.

Tattoo blog 6/7/12

I wanted to start this tattoo blog to document my experiences.  I've always wished I would have kept a journal when I started tattooing.  Now that I'm pretty much starting all over I think I'll do that this time.  I'm going to start out with sharing my story and later I'll post some art and stuff.  One of the main reasons I want to document this info is because of the technical information about tattooing that is easy to forget and some of the technique experiments that are successful or a failure.  Being able to look back at my experiences will hopefully help me to develop a superior style.

A lot of tattoo artists would never put technical information out there for everyone to see because they're scared that it will damage their competitive edge.  It also gives house tatters (AKA "skratchers") the skills they need to steel work from shop tattooers.  I don't care about any of that stuff.  I don't care if it makes you mad either.  It's petty.  Tattooing is a competitive industry, there's only a couple ways to win the competition, either be the only one, or be the best one!  Anyone willing to work hard enough to be the best isn't scared to share their information (notice I said share, I'm not going to deny the true reason I tell what I know is to learn what you know).  If you know you suck, you're scared of no name scab pickers coming out of the shadows and taking your lively hood and you really don't deserve what you have anymore than they do.

I post regularly, at least a couple times a week.  I often post daily.  In fact I try to post every tattoo I do.  I ask myself 2 questions every time.

 1. What could I have done to make this a better tattoo? 

2. What makes this a strong tattoo? 

My goal is to force myself to analyze every single piece no matter how simple or insignificant it may seem so I don't get into the habbit of just half-assing things that I'm not passionate about.  Nothing walks this way, it's out there for everyone to see and criticize... that is if anyone ever sees this!
 

How did you get into tattooing?

I get that question a lot now.  That and "how long have you been doing this?"  Here's the long answer to both.

My dad was pretty heavily tattooed, he's a "biker dude".  I always thought that was awesome when I was a kid.  I would tell the other kids my dad had a lot of tats and I thought that made him the best dad.  I don't have a lot of memories of him before I was about 9.  He lived in Las Vegas and I lived outside of Rochester MN.  But I always imagined he was pretty amazing and told the stories I imagined up as if they were true, no matter how ridiculous.  We started going out to Vegas for the summers when I was about 9 or so (if you can imagine that, 20 below 0 winter days and 120 summer days.  I think I forgot there was such a thing as a nice day for a few years).  On a trip out to Vegas one year we stopped in Craig Colorado to stay with my dad's friend Pudgy (AKA Beatlejuice) who was a tattoo artist.  He had an apartment in the back of the tattoo studio and I got to sit and watch him work for a while.  Then I got my first tattoo.  It was my initials, on my fingernail.  When you tattoo the fingernail the design just grows with the nail and eventually you cut it off.  I spent a lot of time mapping out my adult body and the tattoo designs that would adorn it after that.  When asked as a child what I wanted to do when I grew up I just said "something with art".  I didn't know or care what but at the time I could always color inside the lines better than the other kids and I liked the attention I was getting for it.  Art always was (and still is) an escape for me.  When there was crap going on in my life that I didn't want to deal with I could get lost in focusing on some lines and shading and people would more or less leave me alone while I was doing it.  They also tend to think that everything I do with art is important... even when I know it's just something I drew to get my mind off what ever was bothering me.  I believe art has saved my life in that way.  I don't doubt for a second that I'd be psychotic, addicted to drugs or both if I didn't have paper to turn to.

     In High School I spent more time drawing than hanging out with friends or talking to girls.  I had like, 4 art classes my senior year.  In 1999 (summer between my Junior and Senior year) my dad asked me if I wanted to tour with the Ozzfest painting women's boobs with an airbrush.  I had never even seen a real airbrush at the time but when I told him yes, he handed me one.  He said, "You better start practicing, I have to send some pictures of your work to the tour manager in 2 weeks."  I thought he was crazy, there must be a thousand other artists competing for this job and I was just a skinny punk kid with no clue what I was doing and no one to teach me.  He invited some women over to the house to take their shirts off for me, which you'd think would drive a teenage boy pretty wild but it really didn't.  I was honestly more focused on the art, besides, I had this girl friend at school that I was crazy about and every other female was invisible to me.  I'm still married to that girl today actually.  So, I painted strange women, tag board, my brothers (over and over and over).  My brother Adam would be raw from scrubbing the airbrush paint off of his skin so many times.  But it worked.  My dad sent the pics in and we got the job.  That was probably the craziest summer of my whole life.  We traveled across the nation from state to state working every other day and \driving on our days off.  Some states had laws that wouldn't allow us to paint boobs, so we would paint fake tattoos or do face paint.  Not like the stupid crap you see everywhere today where they paint a tribal dragon stencil on someone.  I was doing full colored dragon sleeves or flames or painting the face to look like a 3D skull.  Not that I was honestly very good at what I was doing, but I was doing something.

     As I think back that really prepared me for working in the tattoo industry, people would come in, tell me what they wanted and I would do my best to put it on their skin, collect some money and send them on their way.  I wish I would have gone straight from HS into an apprenticeship at some BA shop.  I didn't.  I got in a fight with my dad on that trip and decided I couldn't live under his roof anymore.  When we got home I moved out right away and rented a room from a buddy of mine that was a little older and already living on his own.  His name is Erik and he's still one of my closest friends.  I had to get any job I could so I started cooking at this bar around the corner and sat in my little booth drawing on the backs of all the tickets between orders.  That was my first exposure to "real world" adults that wanted to fill my head with dream shattering discouragement and starving artists bullshit.  It was a hard time for me, but I finished High School and never stopped drawing, when I had the time.  I went from that job to a construction job digging ditches for a plumbing company and then started learning how to fix Air Conditioners.  Now somewhere in the middle of all this I got my hands on some terrible tattoo equipment and started making these ungodly needles.  I started tattooing myself and Stephanie and then anyone who would bring me a case of beer, which of course we would drink during the tattoo.  I had more confidence then than I do now.  We were all so stupid.  Thank God most of my friends were punk rock kids that liked the prison tattoo look because that was just about what they were getting.

     That didn't last long though, well at least not at that quality.  I went around to a few shops to ask about a real apprenticeship, but they all required me to work for free and with no other financial support that just wasn't an option. My dad (who is not an artist, but a hell of a business man) opened up a tattoo shop called Precious Slut about an hour away from where I lived in Pahrump Nevada.  I started spending as much time as I could afford to spend out there, which wasn't nearly enough because of the 2hrs of round trip travel time and fuel expense. I had to talk someone into coming with every time too so I knew I'd have a canvas.  I certainly couldn't afford do drive all the way out there just to sit around. When I wasn't at the shop I was on the phone with his artists talking tattoos.  I met another lifelong friend at that time John Bates who is still the guy I call for advice on tattooing.  Eventually he did open a shop in Vegas and I was able to quit my job and apprentice there.  I was able to make a little money in his shop because they were letting me do solid black tattoos (the ones that are easiest to fix).  And that pretty much sums up the whole "beginning" thing.

 

There was a stage there when I got sucked into the Vegas party life.  The call of fast women, good drugs and bad friends was more than I could handle and pretty soon I was tattooing high and taking the money to the bar instead of home to my family.  It was pretty hard to build a clientele with that mentality and really hard to maintain my relationship.  My work was not my priority and I was taking my skill for granted.  I also didn't get along with my old man the whole time I was on his payroll and that ended in a heated argument and me packing boxes.  This resulted in a pretty eye opening slap in the face from reality.  I arrogantly believed my loyal customers would follow me where ever I went and that my portfolio was strong enough to walk into any shop and get a job.  I was wrong on both accounts.  When there's 200 shops in one city you kinda get the impression that there's enough demand out their to support them.  

Where I've worked

I worked at two other shops in Vegas.  I worked with Fred Giovannitti at Tatlantis and Absolute tattoo, which I think is not around anymore.  In fact, I know my dad is now running another shop out of that building.  By the time all this was going on I had done a fair job of getting my head out of my ass.  That was also when we decided to move back to my home state of Minnesota.  Mainly we were tired of living in the same place for so long and we were losing our house anyway.  So we sold everything we had accept what would fit in the smallest U-haul trailer and headed East.

Moving to MN- and getting a square job

I didn't want to tattoo when we got to MN because of the associated lifestyle and also because I had scoped out all the shops in the area and since MN didn't have health regulations on the tattoo industry at the time I saw some incredibly scary and  gross things going on.  Plus, I was sick of doing kanji and lower back butterflies.  I thought hell, I'd rather have a square job and tattoo huge awesome stuff for free from my house and do it with higher health standards than what I see going on in the shops.  

It was a good theory, but it only "kind of" worked.  I started a few tats but mostly got caught up in this frustrating life of daily grind and cooperate American psychotic frustrating BS!  I worked at IBM as a maintenance guy fixing toilets, doors and machinery for 5 years and I hated every minuet of it.  OK, that's not true.  When I first started I was working in their machine shop fixing lathes and milling machines and that was really awesome,  when there was work to do.  I learned a ton of stuff their and it's exactly the type of things I'm going to need to know to build tattoo machines.  Like how to weld, properly measure, basic engineering stuff and metallurgy.  Also I spent a lot of time snaking toilets and playing video games there.  I always said it was like being paid to go to jail.  One day an announcement was made that someone had to get laid off to meet financial needs and I volunteered.  Apparently I was the first person ever to do that, which was just as shocking to me as my volunteering was to the management.  I seriously thought I was going to have to fight for it.  I got on unemployment and used the money to go back to school.  As unemployment got low I started thinking about work and cringed at the idea of going back to that world.  I was making dependable money (not much really) and had health insurance, but I was dying inside.  I know it sounds corny but I was not spiritually fulfilled and was having a really hard time enjoying life.  So I dusted off my old ass picture album and hit the street.  Now I work at Rochester Tattoo.  For the first time in 5 years I don't feel like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not.

 

So that's the back story.  I might add more of that stuff later but from now on I really just want to use this blog to share my experiences, ideas and opinions about how to be the best tattooer I can be.  Thanks for reading it.