Back Piece Video Footage Start to Finish

10th Session - Finished!

Tuesday 25th November
3 Hours

So today was the day to finish my back. It's been a fairly long process to get this far but at the same time it seems to have reached completion rather suddenly. It's quite a big milestone to get this far and I'm really grateful for all of Diego's hard work. I'm really happy with the results but as always I'm kind of sad that another big chunk of work is now finished. I hate the pain at the time, but afterwards I'm always aware how much I'll miss the sessions once the piece is complete. 

I'm certainly not going to miss having my ass cheeks tattooed though. That's got to be the worst feeling ever. And the not being able to sit down properly for a week after gets old pretty quick too. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of it healed and settled into the skin.

As always though, I'm not done yet. I already know what I want doing on my torso and legs so I'll update this as soon as I can with some more work and tales of pain at the hand of the nicest guy I've ever met.

Updated Foo Dog Photo's

I've finally got round to getting some better photo's of my Foo Dog sleeve so here they are. They were taken by my good friend Adam Lloyd, he's an awesome photographer and is heavily tattooed himself too. Check out his work!

5th & 6th Session

Friday 15th November & Tuesday 3rd December 2013
8 Hours

Reference for the clothing

I've done another two sessions in fairly quick succession again so I've combined my blog posts again. It feels like we've achieved quite a lot in these last two sessions and it's all coming together quite well now. 

Session five involved putting all the outlines for the background in which is great because I can now see what the whole thing will look like as one coherent piece. I say it's great now, but at the time I must admit to being slightly filled with dread at the return of the outliner. There's something about the sound of an outliner buzzing away that just makes me nervous! I'll admit that outlines hurt me a lot, particularly on my back as the lines are quite thick so it was a relief when that bit was completed! Actually this whole session turned out to be quite a painful one. For some reason all areas seemed to be particularly sensitive on this occasion, but I got through it.

We also started colouring the clothing on the character. Diego suggested using a palette of blues for this based on a really nice old image he had. I really like the colours we chose and think it will look great when done. We talked about adding a pattern to the clothing in a darker blue at a later date which should be cool.

Session six seems to have made a big difference to the overall look. We did the halo behind the head, connected the background on my shoulders to my sleeves, coloured the jewellery and did some of the hair on the foo dog. Thankfully this session seemed a lot easier to deal with in terms of pain. I can't help think this might be partly to do with the fact we were chatting for the whole time. This is what I enjoy more than anything else about sessions with Diego.

It's going to be a while until I can do any more on this now as Diego is moving back to Argentina in about a week. He'll be coming back to the UK to carry on with projects every six months so it'll be some time in May before I can get any more done. I'm not sure how I'll cope without a tattoo session for six months. I think it's the longest period of time without a session since I started getting tattooed two years ago! I hope I don't get withdrawal symptoms. One thing I won't miss however is getting my butt tattooed. Having to sit down for the first few days after the session is pretty unpleasant! 

Session Three & Four (Numb Bum)

Friday 18th & Wednesday 30th October 2013

7 Hours

Session four

My last two sessions have happened in fairly quick succession being less than two weeks apart so I've combined them into one blog post. Diego will be moving back to Argentina in December so I want to get as much done as possible before he moves. After that he'll be visiting the UK a couple of times a year to continue ongoing work so I'm hoping to get another few sessions in before the move.

As I've written about in previous posts, the first two sessions were pretty intense pain wise! I've always found outlining more painful than shading, so the thickness of the lines involved in a back piece only amplify the pain. Fortunately the last two sessions have been much easier as we focussed on the shading which I find much less painful. We started on the back of the legs which felt surprisingly easy which helped ease my anxiety about the session. We got a good chunk of the background done, some of the Foo Dog body and the shading on the face.

The next session started with the flames around the halo. We decided on a really nice dark orange colour which looks nice and bold, I really love it! We also did the flesh highlights on the character and got some more done on the body of the Foo Dog.

Incidentally I'm still using some numbing cream, but only on the most sensitive areas such as the ass cheeks. This lead to a pretty funny scenario at one point. The cream has to be left on and wrapped in cling film for two hours for it to work so we do two hours without any numbing and spend the last hour or so doing the numbed area. Anyway, Diego had to clean the cream off before tattooing that area, and I suddenly started chuckling to myself as the reality of the situation sank in. At that point I was paying a very nice Argentinian man with a beard to wipe cream off my ass. That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd be writing, but I guess you have to look for the comedy in any situation to get you through. I guess being a tattoo artist isn't always as cool as you might imagine.

Go Big or go Home

Wednesday 7th August 2013

3.5 Hours

Right, I might as well just come out and admit I'm a full blown addict. I thought I could just do it a couple of times, keep it under control and it wouldn't be a problem. But the truth is once you try it there's no going back. Fortunately I'm not talking about crystal meth. No, I'm talking about something much more addictive. Tattoo's. Specifically large Japanese tattoo's in my case. So the inevitable has happened and I've started on a full back piece. This is going to be a pretty long term project as it's such a large area to cover, and will probably take years to fully complete as I want a full background eventually.

I'd discussed the design with Diego for a few months and had settled on a character called Monju Bosatsu who is one of the reincarnations of Buddha. She is depicted sat on top of a Foo Dog so that ties in nicely with my left sleeve too. I'd seen an initial drawing by Diego for this so I knew roughly what it would look like, but when I arrived for my session and saw the final drawing it looked even better than I had imagined.

Once the stencil was ready and applied to my back Diego tweaked, refined and added more details to the design by hand to complete it. This probably took about an hour an a half altogether. Then we were ready to start. 

To say I was nervous about this one was a bit of an understatement. standing around in the studio with your arse out for long periods doesn't do much to calm the nerves, but apart from that I knew this was going to hurt more than my arms, a lot more. I've always found outlining quite painful anyway and due to the thickness of the lines (I think I heard Diego say it was an 18 needle) on this I knew I was in for a rough session. I assumed the worst would be going over the spine, but I was wrong. Very wrong. The worst pain of all was the ass cheeks. It felt like someone was using a power drill on my ass. It was brutal in that area and as that's where we started I thought I was only going to last about 5 minutes. After the initial shock, and due to the fact we were moving up the body I managed to zone out a bit and relax. Diego even commented how well I was coping once we got into it. This temporary bravery and Zen like outlook wasn't going to last forever though. After what seemed like forever laying face down on the table I new I'd done as much as I could for one day. All the adrenaline had worn off and I'd reached the limit of my pain threshold, so I did something I've never done before and threw in the towel. 

We didn't get all the outlines done so I've got another session to look forward to of painful outlining, but I did as much as I could in one go. Anyway, here's what it looks like with all the unfinished bits still drawn in.

And here's what it looked like once all the sharpie was washed off. As you can see, we still need to add a lot of the detail to the foo dog and also the clouds and halo at the top of the piece.

Video Footage

Here's another video showing the progress of my second sleeve from start to finish. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to like or comment on it on YouTube.

Final Session on my Shishi Sleeve

Saturday 16th February 2013

2.5 hours

This was to be the last session I'd need on my sleeve. This was both good and bad as it's nice to finally get my arms finished but also bad as I've really grown to enjoy the sessions and I knew they were coming to an end and I'd no longer have an excuse to go and see Diego and talk tattoo's with him. But all good things must come to an end I suppose.

There wasn't much more to do on this sleeve, just finishing the remaining background up the inside of my arm. We also did a few touch ups on my koi sleeve and added some black spots to the head of the koi which look great!

The session seemed to go really quick and before I knew it, it was all over. And that's that, all done and a bit of a mile stone in my life. I'm going to have to end on a bit of a cliche here but it seems appropriate. I've come to realise that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination, and that feels very true in this case. As much as I love the end result, I wouldn't love my tattoos half as much if I hadn't enjoyed the process and the company of Diego so much. I'm grateful for the experience I've had during this process and hope to get more tattoo's in the near future. But for now, that's it. Over and out...

5th Session on my Shishi Sleeve

Tuesday 5th February 2013

2.5 hours

I knew things weren't destined to go plan this session, not because of any problems with the actual tattoo, but because when I saw the weather forecast the night before it was due for snow. I rather foolishly underestimated just how bad the driving conditions would be getting over to Leeds and with the best of intentions I left earlier than usual assuming I would still be there in plenty of time. I was wrong. The traffic was horrendous and the driving conditions downright dangerous at times! I called Diego on the way to say I'd be a little bit late due to the weather. I ended up being about half an hor late but Diego was cool and we cracked straight on with things.

We decided to finish all the colour in the flowers in this session. I knew I wanted a yellow peony on my forearm, but I left the rest up to Diego. He suggested varying shades of red and orange to tie them all together rather than having all different colours and that was fine with me so we cracked on.

As usual the session was good fun and we chatted the whole time about tattoo's which I always enjoy. Anyway, here's some pictures.

4th Session on my Shishi Sleeve

Tuesday 4th December 2012

3 hours

This session we concentrated on putting colour into the Shishi. I was pretty sure I wanted a dark blue sort of colour for the body as I'd found some really nice reference images using this colour on the animal. After talking with Diego about this we decided on a beautiful looking turquoise blue colour. I was really happy with this colour and was raring to go.

This day was a particularly cold day, and even though the heating was on full blast, due to it being a morning session the room wasn't yet very warm. This coupled with the fact I had to sit there topless meant that I was feeling a bit chilly! I soon realised that getting tattooed when the temperature is less than ideal makes you tense up more, which means it hurts more. I was very much feeling like I was paying back some tattoo karma from the previous two relatively painless sessions. Maybe it was also some of the spots Diego was hitting, especially the part near the collar bone that was making it hurt more as I know from previous experience some areas certainly hurt more than others.

Anyway, we got the colour on the animal done and a small flower too. I was really happy with the outcome and I really love the colours so far.

3rd Session on my Shishi Sleeve

Tuesday 13th November
3 Hours

Todays session was spent continuing on the background shading. This time we concentrated on the top half of the arm. I wasn't really looking forward to this area, especially the bit that goes onto the chest as I remember it being particularly painful on my other arm. Even more so as I felt I had an easy ride in terms of pain with the last session, so I thought I'd be paying back some pain karma to the tattoo God's! But yet again, the pain really wasn't too bad at all. I wouldn't say the area on the chest was pleasant, and I'm not eager to do it again, but it certainly seemed much easier to dea with than last time. Maybe I was a really nice guy in a past life and now I'm cashing in my karma credits. Who knows, but I'm not complaining! I think maybe I'm just mentally dealing with it better now than when I first started getting tattooed, plus I've learn't to relax a lot more now which certainly helps.

2nd Session on my Shishi Sleeve

Thursday 11th October 2012

3 Hours

The first part of this session was finishing the remainder of the outlines. There wasn't much to do, just one more peony and some water around it. I've realised that generally I find the outlining much more painful that shading. Outlining feels like being cut with a very fine razor blade, whereas shading is more of a dull pain. This combined with having to sit in an awkward position to finish the outlining meant that I was very happy when after about 20 minutes Diego said we were done and could move onto the shading.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason the remainder of the session seemed to go extremely quickly and the pain really wasn't bothering me at all. Even whilst having the inside of the elbow shaded which I remember being quite painful on my first sleeve. It may have been partly down to spending the whole session talking tattoos with Diego and just generally having a really great conversation to take my mind off it, or it might have just been that we were concentrating on areas that were less sensitive, who knows. I'm sure when we get the collar bone area I won't be saying that though!

I really do enjoy these moments and love listening to Diego's views on various tattoo related things. I think I'll miss that more than anything when I'm done getting tattooed. That and just generally being in the tattoo environment. I can now fully understand why people get addicted to being tattooed. It's not so much the process of being tattooed, it's everything else that goes along with it. The environment, the conversations and that one on one connection you only get with a great tattoo artist, that's what I'll miss more than anything.

Anyway, onto the pictures!

Starting my Second Sleeve

Tuesday 21st August 2012

3.5 hours

After going through the process of having my first tattoo with Diego I quickly realised two things. Firstly that I definitely wanted my other arm tattooing, and secondly that the only person I wanted to do this would be Diego.

I'd been thinking about what to have on my other arm for a while and had pretty much narrowed it down to having another koi and/or goldfish with peonies. I'd talked to Diego about this and he was happy to continue working on me so as soon as I'd finished my fist arm I booked another session to start my new piece. As the start of my new piece grew closer though I started thinking maybe I was playing it too safe by going for something very similar to what I already had. As I'd started learning a bit more about the various different animals and characters that appear in Japanese tattooing I became more and more drawn to the Shishi (sometimes referred to as a foo dog, which is odd as they're not dogs, they're actually lions). 

I'd seen some really examples online and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted more of a contrast between my arms, so after a quick phone call to Diego a few weeks before the session it was decided and I was feeling much more confident in my choice.

As I've looked deeper into the world of tattooing I've realised that in my opinion, tattooing is the purest form of art for me. You have to form a personal connection with the the artist by the very nature of the process, especially with large scale pieces that require multiple sessions. The artwork can never be sold on or bought by art dealers purely for profit and will remain with the recipient for the rest of their lives, so it forces a lasting connection between the artist and the wearer. It also has a limited life span and ultimately dies with the wearer so therefore can never fall into the hands of someone who doesn't appreciate it in the same way as the wearer. 

Anyway, enough of all this deep and meaningful stuff, let's get on with it!

On the day of my session I was feeling slightly nervous. I knew what to expect in terms of the process and the pain, but until you start to see the piece applied to your skin, you don't know exactly what it's going to look like. I knew deep down that Diego would make an excellent job of it though, and I needn't have worried. I guess it's just fear of the unknown.

Unlike my first tattoo which was all freehand, Diego decided to use a stencil for the actual Shishi and freehand the rest as usual. 

Photocopy of the original drawing used to make the stencil

Once the stencil was on and he had drawn the rest on with sharpie I felt really happy with the look of it and I knew it was going to turn out great. I was now really excited about getting this done. After I'd looked at it in mirror and taken a quick photo we got started on the outline.

Looking in the mirror before we begin the outlining

Close up of the stencil

I really love the way the hair looks on this. The swirls all look really intricate and I know that once we get to the colour stage the hair will look great.

Unfortunately we ran out of time and didn't quite get all the outline finished so I've got a bit of a gap left to fill on the back of my upper arm. Diego said he wanted to re-draw that section next time as we didn't have time to do that and outline it before his next client was due. This was fair enough as he didn't want to do a rush job just to get it done in one session.

Session done