My 133rd appointment with Horizakura was 1.5ish hours of tebori on my right wrist. This appointment finished the final edge of my bodysuit, meaning my ankles, writsts, and neckline are totally shaded. Feels like good progress and fits the overall vibe of the process lately. Feels like every appointment is a signficant one these last few weeks.
This appointment took place on Dec 10th, and as we were looking forward in the calendar, we realized that because of travel and holidays our next appointment would have been on January 21st. Except even that appointment would have to be cancelled because Horizakura was going to be taking his apprentice to the Star of Texas Tattoo show in Austin, TX that weekend. That would put our next appointment in the first week of February which filled me to the brim with sorrow. So I decided that I would go to the convention in Texas so I could keep my appointment in January. Possibly one of the more insane tattoo related decisions I have ever made, but I had enough miles to get the flights for free so I decided to pull the trigger. I have never had the opporunity to be tattooed at a convention and I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity again with Horizakura. So yeah. I’ll be in Austin mid January for my next appointment. Please look forward to it.
I forgot to take pictures after Session 132. You might be noticing a pattern here lately of me forgetting to take these photos in a timely fashion. I’ve decided I’m going to stop apologizing for that. It’s certainly not how I want to run things here. I think this blog, as a resource to others, is at its best if I can provide timely progress photos in a consistent way. Unfortunately I’m at a point in my life where that is proving to be particularly challenging. I’m commited to continuing to do the absolute best job I can here, but I have to make peace with the fact that it may not always live up to the ideals I have in mind.
The manifestation of my busy schedule conflicting with my desire for neat, concise updates on this blog was the following picture, taken it a panic in Horizakura’s studio right before Session 133 was about to begin.
As we were getting ready to start, I realized I had never taken a picture for this blog post and so I whipped out my phone and haphazardly snapped this pic. As luck would have it, Session 133 ended up being on my wrist, so I was able to take actual photos of the progress from 132 without any confusion. My 132nd appointment with Horizakura was 1.5ish hours of tebori extending my half sleeve by Horishun towards my elbow. These are all easy appointments, so there’s not much more to say regarding the work itself. Here is a proper, significantly less panicked, photo:
Each time I sit down to write an entry here, I spend a minute collecting all the things I will need for the post. I’ll pull up my spreadsheet, make sure all my photos are ready to go, and then I typically check my previous blog post. I knew that I was a post or two behind, but I felt confident that I had been keeping good photo records of the process even if I was a couple weeks late. Imagine my shock when I realized my last post was in September. September? SEPTEMBER. How could this be? It’s about to be December! All reasonable explanations of a busy work schedule, homeownership, and toddler wranglin’ are being rejected in favor of a much more comprehensible explanation: There is a tear in the fabric of space in North Jersey. I’m too dumb to prove it, but it’s the only way I can imagine blinking two months out of existence. Once I recovered from my Physics-induced nosebleed, I discovered that the only appoinment I didn’t take photos after was 130 (more on that later). In light of this catastrophic failure, I think it would be best for me to attempt to take this appoitment by appointment.
Session 129
This appointment was two hours of tebori on my right forearm. This was a very easy appointment for me.
Session 130
This is where we go a little “off book.” I typically never have my phone on me during appointments and if I do, I don’t take it out. Well during this appointment I just so happened to snap a quick picture during the appointment so we are in luck. This was taken about an hour and a half into our two hour tebori session. It gives a good enough idea of where we were at by the end of this appointment.
Session 131
This session reminded me why I likely forgot to take pictures after my 130th appointment. I usually wait as long as possible after an appointment so the tattoo has a little bit of time to heal before I take pictures. Well on the day before this appointment, I pulled a muscle in my neck so badly that I was basically bed-ridden for a day. The next morning, I wasn’t certain I would even be able to drive a car safely, so I went for a drive to a local store as a test. I felt that I was able to do everything I needed to, so I resolved to drive myself to my appontment that day (much to my wife’s chagrin). The distraction is certainly what caused me to forget to take update photos before this appointment. It’s worth noting that I just took these pictures in late November of this appointment from late October so the tattoo is pretty much totally healed. We cancelled an appointment mid-Novemeber because Horizakura was travelling.
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?
With my 124th and 125th appointments with Horizakura, we finished up the shading on my chest. All the blackwork is done on my torso. It’s truly thrilling because 1) I get a break from chest tattoos for a while and 2) we are moving on to the last portion of outline for the bodysuit. Tomorrow we will be outlining my right forearm and I am very, very excited. I’m not even sure if we’re going to stick with the original plan or if it’s going to change a bit, but finishing the outline of my bodysuit feels like a big milestone. I’m not certain that we will actually finish the whole forearm outline tomorrow, it might take two appointments, but I’m very excited nonetheless!
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Below are photos taken after my 125th appointment. I forgot to take photos after my 124th appointment. Life has been super busy lately and it messed with my usual cadence a bit I guess. Appointment 124 focused on the clouds and wind bars on my ribs. 125 (which you can see is still healing) was one last area of rock in my armpit and the last portion of my chest. Each appointment was about an hour and a half.
For my 121st appointment with Horizakura, something happened that has never happened before in all of the seven years that we have been meeting. I forgot to go to my appointment.
I have no idea how it happened. I remembered the appointment in the morning when I woke up to get my son out of bed. After that, we all had breakfast together and my wife needed to tend to a client for a couple hours in the morning so I was parenting at 100%. She returned from her work event and I started messing around with some yard work and before you know it, my commitment was gone from my mind. I realized 30 minutes after I should have been there and saw that I had two text messages from Horizakura checking in on me. I can’t believe it happened and I’m furious with myself for letting it happen. I build so much of my life around making sure to accommodate this tattoo, it has never slipped my mind like this and I can’t believe it happened.
I briefly considered not writing about it here at all but decided that I should for two reasons: The first reason is that this space has always been, first and foremost, a journal of my experience with this process. Omitting this would be disingenuous to the “history” of my tattoo. If I want to be able to look back on this record when my tattoos are all sagging and wrinkled to remember all that happened, this event should certainly be a part of it.
The second reason is that I think that my mistake opens up a path for me to discuss an aspect of the tattooer/client relationship that I haven’t discussed here (at least, not to my recollection). I have commonly heard from the few tattooers that I am close with that client reliability can be a real problem, especially when it comes to large scale tattoo work like horimono. They tell me about clients that don’t show up for appointments, constantly cancel appointments, complain about how long the process is taking or how much it’s costing, etc. I would like to take this opportunity to explain to you why what I did today was so fucked up, even though it was completely unintentional. When we as clients commit to an appointment with a tattooer, we are committing to a timeline of events that we only have a partial role in. Your tattoo artist needs to plan the session, supplies, their other clients, their personal lives, and their financial lives around your appointment. No-showing an appointment or cancelling last minute is disrespectful of their time and time is the most valuable thing in the universe. Absolutely nothing you can do or say will give a person back the time you have taken from them. If you want to be a good client, if you want to be the kind of client tattooers actually enjoy working with, be reliable and communicate with them. If you’re going to be late, let them know. If something comes up and you have to cancel, tell them as soon as you find out. Don’t wait until the day of your appointment. If you think something might force you to cancel and you won’t know how it’s gonna shake out until a certain time, let them know about that too. At the very least it will soften the blow if you do have to cancel last minute. Do not make excuses, just take responsibility and keep your appointments. Also, for the love of Cthulu: tattoos are expensive and tebori is slow! If you are reading this and thinking about your first tattoo, do some back-of-the-napkin math before you commit. Tattooer’s Hourly Rate x Estimated Time to Complete Tattoo = Your Total Monetary Commitment (not including tip where applicable). Know what you are getting yourself into. I know that all of this seems really rant-y and probably a little holier-than-thou, but I believe tattooing deserves respect. We show that respect by preserving its history, by supporting the people that carry it on their backs, and by doing our part as clients.
In an effort make this entry into something better than a Colossal Bummer of the Written Word, some good news: I received my Horitoshi book in the mail this week! I have to say, for a collector like me, it’s a fantastic piece. The quality is really top notch stuff. While it only encompasses a small portion of the master’s body of work (PUN!), the presentation is very artistic in that some of the tattoo images are paired with other beautiful architectural or natural photographs. It feels different than the other books I have purchased that have a more biographical or catalogic approach to them. I’ve included an example below. Overall, I’m very pleased to have it in my collection.
I thought I read somewhere that using gifs to express yourself is a Millennial thing, so I guess this post is going to date me. My 120th appointment with Horizakura was two hours of tebori on my left moob. The experience is best described as such:
No part of this session was particularly fun for me. It was either scraping on the ribs, lighting on the nip, or the feeling of heart burn in my chest. Sometimes, it was a glorious concert of all three! This was one of those appointments where I’m glad Horizakura only does two hour appointments. I would have at least needed a little break if it was going to continue.
Besides that, we chatted a bit about a new Horitoshi photo book that is out. It’s quite expensive and I decided that I wasn’t going to purchase it until I had a chance to talk to Horizakura about it. I found the link on Horitoshi’s facebook page, so I was pretty sure it was legit. Even so, doesn’t hurt to do a little due diligence when importing expensive books, especially when the webstore appears to also sell custom motorcycle parts. There are only 500 copies of the book available, but at the high price point, I’m not sure how quickly they will sell. This is the link is for people ordering from outside Japan.
I had to cancel two appointments because of a work project and Mother’s Day so we were able to get this appointment on the calendar on an off-Sunday in order to keep the train rolling. I’m very glad for that! Next appointment isn’t until the end of the month at which point we will hopefully resume our usual schedule. Until then!
(Update: I took a moment to update my spreadsheet that keeps track of all my appointments (don’t make fun of me) and realized that this appointment took me over 200 hours of tattooing with Horizakura. If I had realized that sooner, I would have mentioned it in my initial post. 🎉🎊🥳 The original post is below.)
After a one month-ish hiatus Horizakura and I were able to meet up for our 119th appointment. It was certainly nice to be back and to see him and Haru again. After a little chit chat about their recent travels, we got into about 2 hours of tebori on the recently outlined areas of my chest. Nothing terrible to report in terms of the appointment itself. In fact, I’ve had quite a lot going on in my personal and professional life lately so it was really nice to just spend the two hours not thinking about that stuff.
I’m of course always happy to have a tebori session as I prefer that atmosphere to the machine, but anybody that read my last post might find it especially funny that I went out of my way to discuss our plans to outline my forearm during this appointment. Doubly so considering I also mentioned how I’ve stopped predicting what we would do on a given appointment because it often changes! I’m starting to wonder if Horizakura reads my blog and he’s just messing with me! What I said previously still stands, of course. It all has to get done eventually, I’m just happy to be making progress!
Not much else of note happened during the appointment, but there was a small event that lead me to the wonderfully click-baity title of this entry. When I got back to my car after our appointment, my car wouldn’t start. I’m fairly handy with cars but I called a mechanic friend to talk through some unusual symptoms first. Long story short, I got the car started after a couple of minutes (loose negative battery terminal) but I didn’t have the right tool in my toolbox to actually fix the problem. What kind of moron doesn’t have metric tools in his Japanese car? Me. I’m the kind. Anyway, as I was driving home, I just so happened to be passing an Advanced Auto Parts on Queens Blvd. There was parking right in front of the building, so I just pulled over quick figuring I could buy the tool I needed to tighten the terminal. However, I was a little nervous that if I turned off the car and I couldn’t fix it, it wouldn’t start again. So I left a running car unattended on Queens Blvd while I bought some metric wrenches. It was the bravest thing I have ever done.
That might also be the most hyperbolic sentence I have ever written.
Long time readers may recall how, over the years of working on this tattoo, our plans for the next appointment would frequently change. I had a habit of writing here what I expected would happen during the coming appointments and, more often than not, I was wrong. Tattooing exists at the crossroads of craftsmanship and art. As such I try to always remember that the tattooer might need to change the plan based on how they are feeling on a given day. This is especially true when you’re pursuing a large scale project as there is usually no shortage of areas to attack. Do you continue the outline? Add shading? Maybe decide to go back and add some color or tighten up and tune work from previous sessions? I have always taken the view that it all needs to get done eventually, so no matter what Horizakura decides to work on, it’s progress towards our goal.
You may have noticed that, despite a return to outlining on the last appointment, I made no predictions for appointment 118. Horizakura usually prefers to outline and shade in increments instead of outlining a lot and then going back. Even though we only had a very small amount of space left to outline on my torso at the end of the last appointment, I wasn’t certain that he would continue that outline on this appointment. Lo and behold, he did. My torso is now totally outlined and I’m beyond thrilled! Horizakura spent a little less than an hour outlining the remaining neckline and the area under the hikae by Horishun. Some of the area around the nipple and the area along my collarbone were predictably heinous, but other than that I didn’t experience anywhere near the amount of discomfort I felt during our last appointment. The spot where he added the two cherry blossoms was particularly easy… I could have sat there all day if he had more to do! It’s so peculiar to me how sometimes it only takes a 1/4″ to transition from falling asleep to a white-knuckled hellscape. Bodies are weird.
Horizakura will be doing some travelling in the coming weeks so we will be skipping our next couple appointments. We did discuss what is coming up next time we meet. The plan is to finish the outline completely, meaning we will be outlining my right forearm and connecting to my halfsleeve. I’m not entirely sure what the content will be. We had discusses a ryu-gyo at one point but I think it’s also possible we just keep it simple with rocks and water. No matter what he decides, I’m extremely excited for our next appointment!
Sorry there is only one picture. I realized the full-torso shot I took was totally out of focus so this is all you get for now.
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