For The Horde...Again!!!

Whoa, May's half over already! Time sure is flying! Yesterday I got back to the horde shield I started in March, got to blast some color into this beast. However, an emergency call came and my client had to leave before I finished. So far so good though, we'll just have to get another session in sometime in July. I cant wait to get this one finished!! Its gonna rock! Sorry about the shitty lighting in this pic.
I think Im gonna like using color when I start to get a grasp on it.

Touch Ups

I touched up the first tattoo I ever did today. It had faded a bit, but lookin at it, over all I must say, it was pretty damn solid for my first tat. I may add some more to this tat down the road. I still dont like tattooing on the neck though, its just such an awkward place to work.

March of the Vikings!

Howdy folks. Havent been here in a while. Life can be unpredictable and hectic sometimes, so youll have to forgive me. Anyway, on to the goods! Today I tattooed a viking compass onto a feller's thigh. It was a wicked learning piece!! Ive been away from things too long, that much was very apparent. I learned so much from this piece, it was deadly. A few things werent so much learned as remembered, but I picked up a lot of new tricks along the way too. I realize that I need to do a LOT more shaded pieces and in succession if I want to properly absorb the techniques that I discover along the way. Anyway, this piece was awesome and a hell of a lot of fun!! And let me just say that the recipient was one of the cooler clients Ive had the pleasure of tattooing, a deadly cat for sure!
Does anybody else want any viking-related tats? Im all about it!

New School

Finished another portrait today. A friends daughter. Turned out pretty slick. We have a new scanner at the shop now, and I personally think it sucks, it makes everything look really grainy and even loses certain tones and shit. Ah well, whaddya gonna do?

Nans rule!

I got back to paper and pencil for a little bit recently to do a sketch of a sweet older lady for a friend. It was quite challenging, especially her white hair. Its really difficult to draw white hair on white paper HAHAH. Anyway, it turned out pretty solid.

For The Horde!!

Howdy folks! I took on a pretty big piece today. I did a shield with the Horde standard on it. Its from World of Warcraft. This was an EXCELLENT learning piece for shading, something that I havent done much of yet. I had fun doing this piece, and Im pretty happy with it. I am still extremely slow, and ran out of time as a result. I could have easily put in another 2 hours of work into this tat. Shading is very tough, getting things to look smooth is no easy task. And keeping track and understanding my ink washes can be rather confusing. Nonetheless, this was a great start, I learned TONNES and eventually we're going to add color to this piece too. I hope I see more interesting pieces like this come my way!

Custom Script

Did some custom script today. A friend of mine wanted his son's name on his forearm, so I gladly obliged him. It turned out pretty solid. Its great practice for getting solid lines down! I like working on the forearm too. Overall Im quite pleased with how it turned out.

Pedal to the Metal

I finally did another tattoo today after a much too long break. It was my first script in english. The neck is a really tough area to work on, I dont like it much. Im pleased to see there is an improvement in my line quality, no matter how minor. Im going to try pick up the pace now and do 2 tats a week from here on out. Wish me luck

Road Trip

Tuesday I had the fortune and pleasure of going to Sacred Temple Tattoo yet again, a friend of mine was getting a Janis Joplin portrait done. I took advantage of the opportunity to pick Mr MacKay's brain during the session and it was invaluable. GOD DAMN that man is talented!! He made it look effortless. Im hoping that I can retain at least a small percentage of what I took in on that day. He is also an all around deadly cat. One of the nicest people ive met in a long time.
Oh yeah!..I even remembered my camera this time!! Heres a few pics from my mission! Take a boo

This is the waiting area of Sacred Temple Tattoo. Its a clean, quaint, comfortable little place as you can see.
Two machines were runnin the whole day. Jamie's apprentice Buddy was hard at work on a cool little custom piece he was doing.
A quick glimpse into the creation of a masterpiece.
My friend Craig was captivated by the whole experience. He had never seen a tattoo being done before and the process blew his mind.
The magician taking a quick break from his magic to summon metal demons to aid in his work!The final product. Im still beside myself after seeing this come together before my eyes, Jamie's talent is undeniably monsterous!
Me and the man. There is never any shortage of 'horned hand solutes' at Sacred Temple!

COBRAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

I did a Cobra symbol tattoo today on a forearm. The result wasnt bad. The shape looks off in this pic, but its only because of the way it wraps around his arm, trust me, its symmetrical. Thats not to say that it turned out perfect though, far from it. My lines are still not nearly as clean as I would hope. I got started on this one a little late in the day, and Im still WAAAAAY too slow. I ended up having everyone standing around waiting for me to finish so I felt rushed at the end. It looks like its all straight black, but its actually black outline with a slightly lighter grey wash fill. Also threw in some white highlights to try and give it some depth, rather than just solid black. We'll see how it heals up anyway. It was a fun piece, but I think Im a little frustrated because I know Im capable of better than this...am I expecting too much too fast?

Sacred Mission

I attended a machine tuning course that was held at Sacred Temple Tattoo today in Havre Boucher. I got to meet some very interesting and cool people, and Jamie's crew was awesome as always. Since Im so new to all of this, there was more information floating around than i knew what to do with. But I managed to learn a LOT about the machines and how they work. I met some great people, and we even had a big homecooked scoff! As always at Sacred, it was a great experience through and through. Forgot my camera again though......

Guinea Pigs Part 3

Howdy folks, today I got tattoo # 4 under my belt. This one was some arabic script on a forearm, it means "A New Beginning". Arabic script has a real mystical look to it, I love how it flows. I liked doing this one too because this whole apprenticeship thing is, career-wise, a new beginning for me as well if I catch on. It turned out pretty solid. Definitely nice and black. My lines are still a little wobbly here and there, but it IS only my 4th tattoo. Anyway, the client was happy, so I was too!

Guinea Pigs Part 2...or is it?

I guess technically its Part 3, or its my 3rd tattoo at least. Whatever the case, I did my 3rd tattoo today! I tattooed the tribal "S" logo from the band Sepultura on a friend's calve, and I attemped the 'engraved' approach again. Im pretty happy with how it turned out. This piece was EXCELLENT for learning. It was the kind of thing that taught me more than I could absorb at once. Im stunned at how much subtlety there is to this art. It seems that every time I learn a little bit more, I also realize there are mountains and mountains of things to get the hang of before I can consider myself even remotely skilled. My speed is ridiculously slow too, I feel like I need 3 days to really do what I want to do in a piece this big. I think Im gonna pull the reins back a bit and tackle some smaller designs.

Taking the Plunge! Guinea Pigs Part 1

Well, I went ahead and did it! On Saturday I tattooed my first human!! I did some small music notes on my girlfriends neck behind her ear. Holy crap what a tough spot to tattoo! Not a good place to start out, but I got through it. Getting my lines to be nice and clean is gonna take a while. I think it turned out pretty solid for my first tat ever!! However, in all the hustle and bustle of the big day, it completely slipped my mind to take a pic until after I wrapped it. Theres smudged ink and blood under the plastic and too many little reflections. I'll be sure to get a much bettter pic of it very soon. But for now, heres a peak.
And then yesterday I did my second tat! A friend wanted the symbol for gratitude on her wrist, but I decided to put a little twist on it by trying to make it look engraved into her. It accidentally ended up turning into an illusion of sorts, it can be engraved or embossed, depending on how you look at it. It turned out pretty solid too, despite my initial concerns. I am definitely looking forward to seeing these all healed up!!

2010

Finally! An update! I have a few portraits to show you, but there are a couple I cant post as well. There is one portrait that I delivered a bit late and didnt have the chance to scan it, so I'll have to get that one up at a later time when i manage to get a scan. But anyway, heres the rest.
First there is my friend Mark's daughter. She quite possibly has the cutest smile on the planet, in a hilarious kinda way. He had me do 3 pics of her at different ages. They were quite the challenge. However I was pretty happy with the results.
A toothless smile is pretty challenging, but I think it worked out ok.

I realize that I have a hard time with light hair. The lighter the hair, the harder it is for me to capture. A weakness I'll have to work on.

HAH HAH!! Look at that smile!! I love it!

I also did my friend Greg's grandparents. His grandpa has a gentle smile. I bet theyre really nice people.

Update

I want to apologize for my lack of activity on here lately. The last thing I want to do is have this become just like a lot of blogs do, stale and unactive. However, Ive had an overwhleming reaction to my portraits and have been SWAMPED with requests for them, I guess they make a great Xmas gift. But as a result, I cant post any of my drawings until after the holidays, so I dont spoil any surprises. So that being said, I will be back with some new stuff to show you in the new year, and should I get a chance to sketch something for myself in the meantime, I'll be sure to post it! Have a great holiday folks!!

Vampires

I had some time to draw for myself over the weekend, so I decided I would draw a known person that most of you would recognize. Maybe an athlete, an actor, somebody famous I suppose. But who...
Ive been thinking about vampires a lot lately, its hard not to, they are more mainstream than ever. Vampire this, vampire that, theyre everywhere. Everybody loves vampires. Its kind of annoying. I thought about drawing one, but I usually find them kind of stupid, and maybe even a bit gay (not that theres anything wrong with that). So anyway, I decided instead to try to depict what I consider to be a real-life vampire. Oh yes, there is such thing as real vampires!
And theres nobody in sports today that entertains me like Tyson does. Surely you will all recognize him. So I killed two birds with one stone here.

Finally got back to my portraits. This is another for Jeff, turned out good, im pretty happy with it for now. I absolutely love this little guys expression! He looks like hes pretty fed up with all the bullshit! HAH HAH!! It was a good exercise in drawing different textures, his clothing was pretty varied.
Anyway, I hope I can eventually achieve this level of realism on skin someday...

Billie Jean

Did another pigskin today. I wanted to try filling in something solid black. Tribal doesnt interest me much, so after a bit of google searching I came across this silloutte of MJ, and I thought it was great so I gave it a try. Im sorta happy with how it turned out I guess, its not as clean as I would have liked, but its just a part of the learning process I suppose. Just shows me how much I still have to learn in order to have a basic grasp of things. And besides, the little white pig hair stubble makes it look like theres way more mistakes than there really is. HAH HAH
Anyway, it really is completely different than drawing with any other medium. I can see that this is gonna take a while.
People always told me be careful what you do
and dont go around breaking young girls hearts..

Butcher

I spent the day cutting up the rest of the pig skin....the damn thing was HUGE....Im not sure if I'll ever be the same....HAH HAH HAH wacked...