We’re damn near 25% through 2026 and I’m just now posting my 2025 Wrap Up. I don’t really have a defense for this behavior, but just know that I’m not one of those people that’s still wishing people “Happy New Year.” Even if my timing is poor, I’ve made a bit of a tradition out of these yearly posts and I want to follow through on the idea even if it’s slow to arrive. The bittersweet news is that I was able to take all these photos before any tattoo work had taken place in 2026. We had one appointment at the end of December (169) that is also included here. Besides that, I’ve only managed two other appointments in 2026 because Horizakura has travelled a bit and BOTH of those snowstorms that hit the North East were on a weekend that I had a tattoo appointment. Though the very forces of nature may conspire against us, still we press on.

As for the numbers, 2025 saw a regression in total appointments. In 2023 and 2024 I was able to make 19 appointments each. This year, I was actually slated to break my record with 20 appointments, but a couple last minute cancellations in Oct and Nov had us fall short. We ended up having 17 appointments and for about 33.5 hours of tattooing. This puts our total hours at 292 hours over 10 years. Not too shabby.

The act of coloring the cherry blossoms was a steady march, but it was interesting in that it spread color all across my body as oppose to just working limb by limb. The added benefit is that all the cherry blossoms will age consistently with one another which should help the aethetic in the years to come. The process of coloring in the phoenix has been very interesting and exciting. I was not prepared for the amount of color detail that would be put into the tattoo. I think the more simplified, flat color palette has become pretty popular with a lot of tattooers over the past few years. A part of me wonders if I got so used to seeing tattoos like that that I created a sort of false expectation for what might happen in my own tattoo. I only need to look all over the walls of Horizakura’s studio to see the color detail of his work. Not sure what I was thinking.

Enough yammering. Take a look at the pictures and let’s move on to 2026!