Hurt

Saturday 7th September 2013

3.5 Hours

"I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real, the needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting, try to kill it all away, but I remember everything" 
Nine Inch Nails (Hurt)

As well as this being some lyrics from a brilliant song by Nine Inch Nails it also pretty well describes what it's like getting tattooed on your back. I try to zone out and think of something else but really, all that's going through your mind is the pain.

I must admit I was a bit nervous about my second session on my back as the first session was a bit of a shock pain wise after the relative ease of the arms. I was finding the outlining particularly painful, especially as some of the lines are very thick and I knew there was still quite a lot of outlines to complete. 

Now here's the bit where I have a bit of a confession to make. I knew that I really couldn't deal with the pain from the waist down. The upper body I can just about do, but below the waist and especially on the ass cheeks was just brutal last time. So I cheated. I used some numbing cream for the first time ever. There I said it, I'm a big cheater. But you know what, I don't care because it worked. We applied the cream at the start of the session and wrapped it up in cling film as it takes a couple of hours to work so we started on the upper back and did a couple of hours before doing the lower part once it was numb. It was quite an odd sensation to be tattooed but not to be able to feel it, but at that point I wasn't complaining! I'm still going to do from the waist up the old fashioned 

Anyway, onto the actual design itself. We decided that it would be cool to add some flames around the halo to add some more interest and I'm really happy that we did. I think it looks awesome! We got quite a lot done in the session and it's really coming together nicely now. I can't wait to see how it looks after the next session.

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.

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

1st Session

6th January 2012
4 Hours

Ok, so I thought I'd start a blog to keep a record of my tattoo progress. I've been thinking about a tattoo for about 2 years now, constantly researching online, looking at books and talking to as many people as possible. I knew I wanted the Japanese style for my tattoo as it has a certain class and beauty that no other style has for me. I finally ended up taking the plunge with Diego Azaldegui at MVL Tattoo in Leeds, UK (www.mvltattoos.com) and booking in for a three quarter Japanese sleeve.

I went to visi Diego in December 2011 to talk to him about what I wanted and check out the studio. Diego produces some really great Japanese work and is also a really nice guy, so it was an easy decision to let him work on my very first tattoo.

My first booking was for 6th Jan. This was a 4 hour session, the first 2 hours was spent with Diego drawing directly onto my arm with pens and refining the design until he was happy. The remaining time was spent doing the outlines.

I don't mind admitting that I was shitting myself before he started tattooing me! This was my first tattoo ever and it's a pretty big one too. The session went really well though and I was very happy with the end result.