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.