my latest session

Well, up almost two weeks late but better late than never right?

Is it wrong to be completely entranced by something on your own skin?

This was taken when the work was freshly done - it looks a ton better now that it's pretty much healed, my next session isn't for another month I'm giving my poor back a chance to heal itself as it appears my body is utterly shot. I'm not managing more than an hour or so at a time at the moment. Aside from hating tp wase Kamil's time I do kind of want to get this finished in the next millenium!

more photos!

Just a quick hit posting today as I'm absolutely exhausted and have to get up early to buy supplies for our house Christmas dinner tomorrow (insanity) and my apologies for the fragmented incoherence but a mixture of sugar and incredibly strong painkillers isn't realy a winning combination for me, thought process wise. But as promised/asked for:

Healed work from my session way back when (ie. 29th October):

And this is the fresh work from today's session (I'll post more on a non skewed angle when it's healed up):



Both were only two hour sittings as I'm a wuss and can't take much more pain than that. There is more detail on the right side too it's a pretty awesome fur effect but alas, is not visible in the picture.

Today's music: Johnny Cash

I started a mini discussion with Kamil concerning my sleeves (I know! At the rate of progress my back is going at I won't be starting until this time in 2009), and damn it if I don't have the best plan ever. He also reassured me that despite guesting at Last Rites, he's not going anywhere any time soon so if I have to take a year off before I can afford my sleeves then so be it.

Awesomeness!

And yes, my next session is on the 26th, that's one whole week away. Guh-yikes. Looks like we're concentrating on my ice queen for now and saving the background for when she's finished.

Comments? questions? Fire away.

PS. Go look at Boo's new tattoo. It's purty and I covet it.

PPS: I have a couple of future sessions booked too, apparently I don't need the money to eat so having two £200 sessions in the span of one paycheck is absolutely fine. Honest.

a quick update

I'm now five hours down on my backpiece, I only managed two hours on the last sitting. Mostly due to me being a complete wuss. I'm really, really glad nobody told me how painful this was going to be (or how awkward - turns out that having your entire spine stabbed repeatedly leads to a few days of restricted movement and very little sleep - shocking I know) because there's a chance I might have chickened out, now there's no chance of me doing that because the "half finished" look doesn't really suit me. There no photos as of yet as my camera died shortly before my session but I will pester someone into taking some for me the second I'm fully healed, there are a few stubborn spots that are resolutely remaining scabbed over.

The datailling from the last session is gorgeous, Kamil did a lot of work on her face as well as shading in her chest and shoulders and starting work on her dress. The face in particular blows me away, her lips look absolutely phenomenal - kind of weird to focus on such a small detail but they're beautiful!

I've got over a month now until my next session, which is at the end of December hopefully that'll get me past the memory of how horrifying it was and back into bouncing excitement (and give me some time to save up!)

Next time will also involve stencilling the background for the top half of the piece so hopefully I'll have all the linework finished by the new year. Here's hoping!

Custom Work: Part III

Hey, guess what? It turns out that having a blog post to write is the perfect antidote to procrastination - I've got so much work that isn't writing my blog done today it's unreal!

Anyway, belated but nevertheless...

Chapter III - The First Session

I had my first three hour session four days ago and I've only just re-developed the ability to lean against things. Oh yes folks, it fucking hurt. I really should have figured that having my entire back stabbed with teeny tiny needles would be ever so slightly debilitating, oh well willfull ignorance I guess.

So I arrive at the studio just a little bit early and Kamil is messing around with six pointed geometric designs and a photocopier trying to figure out the background for the top half of my back, it's not going to get outlined today so it's more of a question of concept at this point. The first twenty minutes or so of my appointment is spent re-sizing his sketch so that we can make the stencil and discussing how the final design is going to work.

And yes, my already fairly large back piece just got a whole lot bigger.

It turns out that at twice the size it was originally going to be the shape of my body is such that it actually works with the design to give it a completely new dimension of perspective. It actually looks like it was drawn directly onto my skin it fits me so well. Anyway, I have about fifteen minutes so sit in the reception and contemplate the fact that I'm going to spend my afternoon essentially naked in a room full of heavily tattooed men before Kamil is back downstairs to tell me that the stencil is ready and we can get started.

It isn't just a case of applying the stencil and starting the ink work though, within half an hour I'm completely covered in marker pen, a walking, talking concept sketch. And yes, before you ask I have photos:

As I was standing with my back to the door for the duration of this exercise every person coming up to the studio had full view of what was going on with my back. Far from being embarrassing this was actually pretty cool as the other artists would give their input into the design, commenting on the placement of a certain element or adding another concept into the background - occasionally grabbing a marker pen to demonstrate what it was that they meant. It was really interesting to hear their comments, kind of like being a work of art receiving critiques. It was all positive though, lots of remarks regarding the composition and how phenomenal it's going to look when finished (those may be my words).

Then followed an hour of outlining followed by an hour of shading. Kamil doesn't really do that much line work so the parts that will be in sharp focus were outlined strongly with more guidelines added in. Although you can't see from the photos I also have some outlines in yellow and a very pale red that will act as guides for the negative shading that's to come. The shading was horrifyingly painful and I was already shaking from the outline, we stopped when I was pretty much on the verge of not being able to take any more.

Kamil was a really reassuring artist, he warned me beforehand that he's normally quiet while actually tattooing so he can seem quite cold at times but it's purely due to concentration. He did chat to me a bit though, saying how he appreciated people who wanted big pieces because it gave him a chance to be an actual artist rather than just "giving someone a tattoo". Every now and then he would comment on how well I was doing and offered to take breaks when I started to get twitchy.

Here's what we managed to get done (apologies in advance for the crappy quality):



It doesn't look like much but my inability to move my back this week begs to differ.

Eventually it will extend down onto the backs of my legs a little way, blending out into the skin.

At the end of the session Kamil thanked me saying again how excited he was to be working on the design for me and told me to book two appointments in December. He's going back and forth to New York at the moment as he's now working with Paul Booth over at Last Rites, and wanted to be sure that he could fit me in for as many sessions as possible.

As it turns out I'll actually be going back a little sooner as I got a phonecall yesterday asking me to come in again at the end of the month. So, October 29th is my next session. Of course I'm very, very excited.

So come on then, you pestered for the photos - tell me what you think!

Custom Work: Part II

Apologies for my slackerness in posting this update - I'm working for two people at the moment and considering I usually barely work for one this is taking its toll somewhat, plus no internet access at home due to a shiny new flat and the crappiness of Virgin Media. Anyhoo, last week I went for my art consult with Kamil, and so without further ado may I present...

Chapter II - On the Subject of Art Consultations.

I managed (with every neurotic nerve in my body literally screaming at me to get a move on) to only be 5 minutes early for my art consultation and as soon as I arrived Kamil went bounding upstairs to get my sketch. Let me say this now: it was pretty much completely different from the design we had discussed. This is mainly due to me saying "no, seriously - do whatever" the last time I saw him. Because the design had to include a re work of my hideous snowflake tattoo that currently resides on my shoulder, (Note to self: I should really get a photo of it before I have it covered) he took the whole "winter" theme and ran with it. We'd discussed having a character, a woman with a frozen face, as the main element of my design and the sketch that Kamil showed me was an expansion of that. In short I will have a tattoo of a highly stylised comicbook ice queen stretching down the length of my back. Anyone who reads Circular Logic (or is a regular visitor to the Pajiba comments threads) will know exactly how incredibly thrilled this makes me. Like, it's a week later and the thought of it still makes me squee. He showed me how he was going to use the blank space of my skin for some incredibly nifty looking negative shading and gave me a general idea of the colour scheme he was going to use, explaining how he'd be mixing some warm tones into the background to keep the whole thing from being too harsh. We chatted about how he was planning on using pink and yellow highlights and about the way that ice fractures light and how he was going to be recreating that using ink. The final colour scheme still isn't decided yet and I'm glad about that because I'd never realised what an incredibly fluid process this whole thing is - I'm actually almost more excited about seeing the design evolve than I actually am about getting the finished tattoo.

Almost.

I was completely happy with the design, although it was different than what I'd originally pictured I could certainly tell that this was better. It has exactly the feel that I was going for when I first got my snowflake done and I'm glad that I'll be getting a design that incorporates it rather than just obliterating it - it's important to me symbolically that my big blue mistake remains on my skin. And so... I put down the rest of my deposit for my first session (more than I was asked to - I always do this with tattoos, piercings, anything - the more money I part with up front and can never get back the less likely I am to have a complete freak out and not do it) and I start work on October the 10th. I am so very, very excited. We decided on a three hour session at first which I'm a little nervous as I've never sat for more than two hours and most of that was shading which, for me at least, hurts a hell of a lot less than outline. Still, three hours is enough to get the line work finished and maybe start some of the shading so I guess this is a case of grin and bear it.

Also: three hours alone in a room with someone who's essentially hurting you? Yet another reason you have to get on with your tattoo artist.

In between now and then is the London Tattoo convention which, provided I actually get myself into gear and buy tickets for, I will be blogging about soon afterwards.

Custom Work: Introduction, Part I

Of my previous tattoos, three have been the product of flash as it happens all from the same place - the fabulous Tattoodles (subscription required for the galleries and full size artwork) and one, the snowflake on my right shoulder was drawn for me from a photograph. However, I didn't have any input into the designs of any of them (short of actually choosing the images from a database) and so I consider myself as:

a) not having any custom tattoos
b) not having any proper tattoos.

I feel this way as quite conceivably there could be many people walking around out there with the same tattoos as me and also because all of them are less than 4" in diameter. As I've been undergoing the research for my next tattoo one thing that I've noticed is the lack of information regarding how to actually go about getting a custom tattoo designed and eventually inked. Now, I know as much about this as any relative novice so I thought I'd share the process in blog format as I go through it (although don't expect any live blogging while in the chair). So without further ado may I present...

Chapter I - the Accidental Appointment

Backstory: I ended up getting kicked out of work at 11am today as our network was down (some moron managed to cut the cable supplying the building with life giving internet) and everything I had to accomplish today involved me being online. What with travel strikes and unexpectedly sunny weather I decided to take a wander down to Camden so that I could sit by the water and sketch for a while or maybe wander around the market and get some Japanese food from one of the stands. But as always I gravitated towards my favourite tattoo parlour, Evil from the Needle and ended up inside flicking through the artwork.

I've been researching artists for my next few tattoos for a few months now and there's one in particular that I've had my eye on for a while. He currently resides at Evil from the Needle and his name is Kamil. I have been keeping an eye on him (read: obsessively looking through the galleries of his art and tattoo examples) and had already pretty much decided that he was the person I wanted to draw up and tattoo my back piece.

Side note: Choosing the artist I wanted was a long and complicated process... okay, maybe not complicated but it involved a hell of a lot of leg work. Sheer luck dictated that I ended up with a local artist - for a while I planned to get the work done by someone on the coast a good few hours away (and I may still go through with that for another tattoo). Lesson for today: good artist trumps travel expenses.

Process: After wandering in to the studio I had a look through the photo albums associated with each artist, I already knew pretty much what I wanted done and who I wanted it done by but nerves stopped me from striding straight up to the desk and asking for what I wanted. The receptionist eventually noticed me loitering (note for the future: you become instantly conspicuous if you walk into a tattoo parlour wearing a lavender sweater and have your hair in bunches) and asked me if I was looking for something in particular. I explained that I was thinking about getting my first piece of custom work done, that I was considering one artist in particular and was also wondering if I would be able to book a consult with him.

The receptionist disappeared upstairs and I started to feel uneasy; tattoo parlours always intimidate me as I tend to feel like I'm not quite "alternative" enough to be in them and taken seriously. Once I'm a serious bag of nerves, she returns and tells me that although Kamil is currently doing a tattoo he'd like to speak to me about my design.

Now I'll take this opportunity to say that every other tattoo I've had done has been met with mild indifference on the part of the artist. Maybe it's just because I've been getting flash done and hence not challenging them, maybe it's because I'm a ludicrously irritating person who only gets on with about one out of every 7 people. We'll never know, but my point is that instantly this guy was different. I started explaining what I wanted (sketches to follow incidentally) and instantly he told me that what I wanted probably wouldn't translate that well as a tattoo. Rather than just agreeing to what I wanted, or greeting me with a stony "no, I won't do that" he instead started developing on my idea (while giving the prettiest damned Goth girl I'd ever seen some very impressive colour work I might add) and explaining how he saw it working.

He explained how to turn my design into something that was inherently tattooable as well as describing how he would use the natural curves of my body and the tone of my skin to bring out the best from his ink work. Just listening to his ideas and seeing how excited he was (the correct answer to the question "how big do you see it being?" is apparently "big") made me even more excited about the project. He asked me to put a deposit down for the artwork (which ended up at around £40) and to book a proper consult in a week's time. As it is my first piece of properly custom work he told me to make sure that I was the final appointment of the day so that I could have as much time as I needed to discuss it with him and then hopefully, at the end of the session, put down a deposit for the actual work.

And so on Wednesday the 12th of September I shall return and have a look at the artwork he has prepared. I'm literally bouncing off the walls.

Side note: normally the idea of getting an artist to design something essentially blind, as well as taking it off in an entirely new direction would not be particularly advisable or even desirable, especially for someone like me. However, I chose this artist based on the style of his custom work as well as the paintings that he has produced. Giving too strict a set of conditions wouldn't produce something that was truly "his" artwork and I'd rather tone down something original than be left with a flat carbon copy. That said, if I had a piece already designed then I would have chosen the artist in a completely different way and treated his suggestions in a totally different manner.

Aftermath: This is a larger issue than you may first think. Although tattoos are a highly personal thing, and the majority of mine aren't on public display the attitudes of those around me still affect my daily life, if not my decisions. After my appointment I was, and probably still am completely hyperactive. This was dampened only slightly when telling my Mother about the work (this will be a common theme so be warned) she doesn't agree with the designs I get (or even the fact that I get tattoos at all) and she tends to only like the very small, very inoffensive and pedestrian tattoos which I personally think fall into the category that she so kindly labels "tacky". But out of some kind of insane loyalty and respect I have to tell her what's going on after every appointment. Flatmates were uninterested, slightly freaked out and crazily excited respectively.

So there we have it, the first stage of the process has been completed. Any questions/requests for clarification in the comments section are welcomed and will be responded to. That's me out for tonight.