Category / Tattoo

by theremonster

Real Cool Tunes

Last night, Horizakura opted do a little shading on my leg.  Since the last four appointments were all outline, it was nice to get back into shading.  It’s so much more peaceful without the noise of the machine.  This was complimented by Horizakura’s music selection for that evening.  Normally we listen to different kinds of jazz (I don’t know much about jazz, so I’m not going to try to be specific), but last night he was playing this experimental improvisation by a guy named Marc Ribot.  I found a link to the exact video on YouTube.  I don’t really know how else to describe it, but it was really, really cool to get tattooed and listen to this:

Below are pictures from this morning. For some reason, my leg looks like it has already begun to heal.  Normally it doesn’t look like this until later in the evening or the next day.  The only logical conclusion is that I have developed advanced healing powers a la Wolverine.  Behold!

by theremonster

White Hairy Man-Thigh

I have joked for a while that the whole reason I’m doing this is to cover up my white hairy man-thighs.  Maybe I’m only half joking.  Horizakura took the first step towards making that tanline-less dream a reality by tattooing a koi on in the inside of my left thigh.  Definitely not the most pleasant area to be tattooed, but overall it wasn’t too bad.  Pictures are below.  I finally went ahead and just shaved my whole leg too.  Since Horizakura only shaves the area he plans to work on during a given appointment, I had about 5 different lengths of hair on my legs from bald to full grown.  This morning when I looked at my leg and it looked like my knee was wearing a yarmulke.  Not that I have anything against yarmulkes, but I’m not Jewish and they don’t belong on knee caps.

Looking ahead, the plan seems to be to outline my entire left leg and torso and then begin shading from the ankle up.  After that, we will move on to my right leg.  If that’s the plan, I should be starting my sleeves sometimes around 2027.    -_-

Patience is a virtue.

by theremonster

Reflexes

Photos from my last appointment are below.  This was only about 45-60 min of tattooing, but Horizakura spent quite a lot of time drawing on me and planning out the motion of the water.  By the time he had finished, there was marker all over my stomach and right leg and left thigh.  With this appointment, he finished the outline on my left calf, adding another lil fishy in a leaping motion. It’s cute! And manly and tough, of course.

Little anecdote from this appointment:  I have been living in mortal dread of what the back of my knee was going to feel like.  You can see the waves in the back are getting dangerously close, and each time he’s been in that area, it feels like he’s right on the back of my knee.  I find myself thinking, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad!” and then I see he’s still below it and realize the worst is yet to come.  A fun little ride that I DIDN’T expect was the sensation of being tattooed over where my reflex point is below my knee cap.  There has been some pretty unpleasant areas during this process, but the feeling of having a reflex stimulated but not being able to flail around was nearly torturous.  It was like being tickled but not being able to move.  Once again, you will notice that he isn’t even truly over my reflex point yet, so I have more of that to look forward to.  Tattoos are a helluva drug…

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by theremonster

34

Feels good to be back in our groove.  Taking so much time off was a total bummer, but work has finally calmed down a little and I think my schedule is back to normal.  Below are pictures of last night’s session as well as recap from the previous week.  As you can see, he added another goldfish.  The plan is for there to be a third gold fish underwater in that (currently) silky smooth bald spot and a third koi fish on the inner left thigh moving downward towards my knee.  But plans change, so only time will tell!  Until then, have a look:

by theremonster

Left leg

Horizakura has started the outline on my left leg!  Yee haw!  His plan is to do a variety of goldfish and koi fish on my legs.  We still haven’t figured out for sure what will go on my stomach, but that decision is a long way away anyway.  It’s really exciting to be working on something that isn’t my back and butt.  It’s really exciting to be able to look down and see what he’s working on.

I took these pics really quickly with my cellphone before leaving for a work trip.

by theremonster

Starting from the bottom

Horizakura finished the koi on the back of my leg today.  We also spent some time talking about my ultimate goals and he said that if we are going to do a full suit, he should start from the bottom.  So it looks like there has been a hard pivot. Instead of moving on to my arms, my next appointment will be on my legs.  That won’t be for over a month though due to personal and work engagements.  Enjoy these pics while you wait with bated breath.

by theremonster

Somethin’s Fishy….

I was hoping this appointment would be the last bit of shading before we started more outlines.  Shading scales is tedious and time consuming though, so Horizakura wasn’t able to finish the koi’s head in our usual two hours.  He said next time we will finish the koi and start the outlines!  Which is both exciting and terrifying because if my memory serves me correctly, outlining is absolutely no fun at all.  See photos below (how ’bout that tan line!), I believe I will update again in about 2 weeks!

by theremonster

Hot Damn!

I am very excited to write that the black work is nearly complete.  If I had to guess, we have one more appointment to finish the partial black shading on the koi.  After that, we are back in outline world.  Not sure how that will pan out, but I imagine it will start from my shoulders and extend from there to my arms (as opposed to starting with the arms and connecting it all later).  I have opted to go this route instead of doing color on the back piece because the color will be fairly quick, so I would like to be able to do all the new color around the same time.  I hope this is coherent. I just wrapped an 18 hour show day… I’m a little shot.

by theremonster

We’re running out of background!

Nothing overly exciting from this appointment.  Finished some more background on my right hip and blubbery muffin top.  The real excitement is in the coming appointments.  There are only a few more outlined background areas that can get shaded.  Besides the background, the dragon’s head gets shaded as well as some black on the koi.  I think we’re going with a mottled color scheme on the koi, a pattern of black, white and some other color on the scales.  Once those three are shaded with black, I have the option of going into color on my back or finishing the outline and outlining my sleeves.  I’m leaning towards the outlines.  As exciting as color is, it doesn’t hold as well as black (from my understanding).  I would rather finish all the outlines, shade the rest of it, and then go into color all over.  That’s the plan for now anyway!  The idea of having work done on my arms and not my body is thrilling!