September | 2023

On my 128th appointment with Horizakura we finished the outline of my bodysuit.

If you have been following along with me for any amount of time, I’m sure you can guess how happy I am to have reached this milestone. Just like everything in life, I have found that actually achieving the goal doesn’t feel quite like I imagined it would feel. I guess in my head I expected a lot of high-fiving and flowing whisky, maybe some music and somebody doing a wheelie on a motorcycle. The reality has been mixed feelings of tranquility, pride, resolve, and sadness. Out of everything, the sadness was perhaps the most unexpected, but really when you think about it, it’s not that far outside the realm of comprehension. A completed outline means that, in large part, the tattoo has been defined in its entirety. The shading and the color will change it all by giving depth and life to the content, but there is a sort of bittersweet feeling knowing that a good amount of the mystery is gone. Even with that bittersweet sensation on my mind, there is no doubt that the most exciting times are still ahead of me. I know from my experience with my half sleeve just how much color changes a tattoo. The prospect of beginning with the color before this year is over is almost too much to hope for, but with steady progress I think we are very likely to get there.

As for this appointment, it was just fine. I’ve mentioned before how unpleasant the chest was for me, so forearms, elbows, and elbow ditches are nothing by comparison. Horizakura spent a little while drawing in the rest of the background on my forearm. Just before we started, I reminded him that he had previously mentioned that he would shorten the V in my right armpit to match what he had designed for my left sleeve. I wasn’t sure that he wanted to do that during this appointment, but I decided to speak up about it anyway. He seemed glad that I mentioned it because he made the measurements and added the necessary linework there. By the time he wrapped up the outlines, there was still about an hour left for our appointment. In the past, he has always just cut the appointment short if he reached a natural stopping point for the day. However for this appointment, almost as a pracitcal manifestation of the momentum we seem to be building, after he finished with the outline, he took 15 minutes and set up his station for tebori and got into some shading as well! This is the first time I can recall him outlining and shading me in the same appointment. I love the spirit of using all the time available to us. It feels like we’re really moving now!

From here on out, it looks like it’s all tebori all the time. I couldn’t be happier.

I am very happy to report that my 126th and 127th appointments with Horizakura involved extending my right half sleeve to match my left full sleeve. I have been anticipating these appointments for quite some time. Patience is paramount in this process (I’d like to see you whippersnappers find alliteration that good on Twitter!). While I have always endeavored to stay patient and recognize that all progress is progress towards the final goal, having one half sleeve and one full sleeve has been driving me nuts for over a year. I’m really happy to have almost my entire right sleeve outlined as of this writing.

I would love to feign intent and tell you that this combo post was dictated by the content of the tattoo, but that would be a straight up lie. I continue to be quite lazy when it comes to these updates. Horizakura and I are meeting for tattoo appointments at a record pace and part of the reason for this blog was to fill in the times when I’m not getting tattooed. Well now 99% of the time I’m not getting tattooed is occupied by a toddler. Between the breakneck pace of the tattooing and the breakneck speed of my son heading towards some unforeseen danger, this blog has started to slip a little. Fortunately, I have been pretty good about remembering to take pictures at regular intervals so the integrity of the progress photos is mostly intact.

As far as that little lie about intent I mentioned above, well the content of my right forearm is designed to tie-in with my Fudo Myo-o sleeve in a pretty direct way. Fudo is very often depicted with two attendants (I think there are 8 total attendants, but two are more commonly placed with Fudo than any of the others) named Seitaka Doji and Kongara Doji. Horizakura has tattooed their respective bonji on my right forearm and surrounded them with fire, water, and rocks to match my left sleeve. Kongara’s bonji was tattooed at 126 and we just did Seitaka’s last night during appointment 127. Each session was two hours of drawing and tattooing. Because of the interconnectedness of the content, I do think that my laziness worked in my favor for this particular post. It’s easier to understand the concept of the pairing with both bonji present. Interestingly, the right side of my body now contains four total bonji, but I do feel that the way these two are implemented makes them stand out as more of a thematic element of the tattoo. By contrast, the other two bonji I have are for family members and they are both far more understated in their execution. I mentioned this to Horizakura while we were discussing options for my forearm and he was not at all concerned with adding more bonji to the mix. Well if it’s fine with him, then it’s fine with me!

Finally, you will notice that there is only a small area left to tattoo under my right elbow ditch. This indicates to me that we will have finished the entire outline by the end of my next appointment. Have I mentioned that I’m excited?