Month / September 2020

by theremonster

Back to Tebori

My 79th appointment with Horizakura marked a return to shading all the outline that has been added since we were able to start up again in July. My dream of finishing the outline of the tattoo was left to die on the vine as Horizakura still wants to consider the elements of my left arm and ribs/chest. My instinct is to charge forward and his is to slow down and hold back. That’s pretty much how it has always gone with us, and it’s worked out pretty well so far. Who am I to get in the way of the process?!

ANYWAY. All that preamble was just to say that for the next 8-10 appointments (I’m totally guessing here), this will be the All Tebori, All the Time Blog. No particular notes here. He spent an hour and a half shading the background of my right inner thigh. Not a bad area to be tattooed in my opinion. It’s nice to be back to the quiet sounds of tebori. I know for a lot of people the sound of a tattoo machine fills them with excitement, but having experienced a fair amount of both, I have to say the peace and quiet of tebori is far superior.

That’s all I got.

by theremonster

Stupid Brain

My 78th appointment with Horizakura was about an hour and a half long and consisted of connecting all the different areas of the legs and stomach to each other and to my backpiece. These pictures are a little bit of a treasure hunt in terms of figuring out where the fresh lines are, but you can definitely tell. Besides water/waves, a houju was added to my right rib area.

The only interesting tidbit from this appointment actually came from when he was tattooing over my pubic bone area. He had already finished tattooing up my right side and started working his way from right to left across the pubic area. I was braced for some serious pain, but it was fine. Then, something interesting happened. Imagine a line cuts my body in half vertically through my navel. As soon as he crossed that line from right to left, the pain intensified a lot. I had noticed at times before how crossing from one side of the body to the other hurts a lot, but I always thought it was kinda unscientific or all in my head. Well this was about as clear cut as it could be. Exact same area of the body, same time frame, right across. I guess my brain was sending all those pain hormones or coping mechanisms to the right side of my body, but it wasn’t doing anything for the left side. Eventually, it evened out too and the pain normalized, but that initial changeover was wild. Stupid brain.

Next appointment is in two weeks and it seems like we will be shading all the background that has been added this year. I had hoped we could just finish the rest of the outline since we’re so close to being done, but Horizakura still has some design stuff that he wants to think over for my torso/arms. I’m not really pushy by nature, it all has to get done eventually anyway, but the real reason I’m happy to give in to his plan is because not pushing forward with the outline is how we came up with the idea for the Hokusai stomach piece. I’d rather give him the space to think it over, that’s worked out pretty well for me so far.

by theremonster

Houju for Your Thoughts?

My 77th appointment with Horizakura was very similar to the 76th appointment.  For this hour, he tattooed the same area as last time but on my left leg, adding a houju to my inner thigh and another to my left hip.  I really like them as little pops of color and I think it’s going to look great when everything is shaded and colored… in like 10 years.

 

I’M NOT CRYING!  YOU’RE CRYING!!!!!

 

In terms of the experience itself, well it was also very similar to last appointment, although I have to say the compromising nature of the position wasn’t as bad having already experienced it once before.  The only thing really worthy of note is that I had truly forgotten just how violently painful the ass is.  He put a line on that thigh/ass fold that was like white lightning and instantly reminded me why I hated getting my ass tattooed so much.  Fortunately, it was just the one line.

We briefly discussed next steps as well.  Seems like the plan is to finish outlining/connecting the thigh and background around the phoenix, then he want’s to switch over to shading again before he does my arm outlines.  Part of me wants to ask him to just finish the outline of everything first so I can be done with it.  It’s arbitrary, but it does feel like having the whole suit outlined will be an “item crossed off the list” in this process.  We’ll see what happens… it’s all got to get done eventually anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Excelsior!