2.28.11

Since technically I'm posting this on March 1st at 12:17am, it's my 31st birthday so I'm taking the night off.

2.27.11

All week I had my Saturday and Sunday appointments mixed up in my head. I thought I had a touch up today, but that was my Saturday afternoon appointment. Today I got to finish Taryn's manatee tattoo on her thigh. I've been tattooing 12 years and I've never tattooed a manatee before. Awesome. Thanks Taryn!Taryn makes pretty damn cool robots our of found material and had a surprise for me today. Check out her work- http://www.etsy.com/shop/milocraft

2.26.11

I worked on my buddy Rodney's sleeve today and although we got a bunch more done, unfortunately when taking photos I wasn't thinking about taking shots for the blog. I just took a bunch of photos for myself to try to start planning how to connect his sleeve, to his backpiece, to his ribs.

Second appointment was a touch up/ small add on that I hope to get photos of in the next month or so. No photos of that either....

So today is another tattoo that's a few months old that I dug up from the vault known as my camera's memory card. It's on the back of Jordan's thigh and fills up an empty spot he had just above the back of his knee. I think tomorrow I'll finally be able to post photos of the longboards I painted. I'll also get to finish Taryn's manatee tattoo hopefully. Super exciting!

2.25.11

A few more pics of my Dad and I from our trip to Banff today. I'm extremely tired, lost my wallet, and then was lucky enough to have someone at a gas station find it. We ate good food, and after the wallet ordeal, went cross country skiing.

2.24.11

A little bit of mobile blogging again tonight. Back at my favorite home away from home, just outside of Banff on a trip to the mountains with my Dad. Crappy part is it's -32 degrees outside...

Nice little lobster tail appetizer before dinnerAnd a nice little fire in our private fireplace in the hotel room to end off the night and keep us warm in this extremely cold weather.

2.23.11

REALLY awesome day working at home at ye olde log cabin. Because the 2 skateboards I was working on are done and in the hands of my client, I was able to return to the flash set I had started and finish it today. DONE!!! I'm going to take it to the printers tomorrow, and hopefully have it ready for sale the week after. Also REALLY exciting, today I picked up a few custom stamps I had made. I've been wanting to get a name and logo stamp made for flash sheets forever. Definitely one of those things that was in the back of my mind for a long time, and have no good reason for not doing sooner. Yes indeed, today was a really good day.

2.22.11

I bought my copy today and listened to it more than a few times while cleaning our computer/drawing room. It seems pretty obvious to say but the new Radiohead is amazing.

2.21.11

First appointment today was working on Amy's back. Felt pretty bad because that deer's tail must have hurt quite a bit. Here ribs got a bit too sore to finish the whole area, so we worked on a bit of the grass in the middle of her back at the end of the session. She's killing it- never been tattooed before this, sits like a champ, still smiling and joking around when she's obviously in pain, and getting tattooed every 3 weeks. Nice work Amy.That's all... I'm tired and going to bed. Tomorrow- sleep, catching up on emails, finishing flash

Javier Campos from Lima Peru... uses Godoy Machines

Javier Campos is a Peruvian tattoo artists. We mentioned his model machine in previous blogs. He has only been tattooing 8 years... look at his work. These are mastepieces. This is what every tattoo artist should strive for. When you have this kind of understanding of your machine and technique, there will be NO limits to what you can do.

I can't wait til the trend of traditional tattooing is over. It will be interesting to see who will be out of work and who won't. Artists with limits are just that. This guy will always be busy because he has the skills.



We met Javier at a convention in Lima Peru about 5 years ago, and saw him again at the following one. Since then, we have become friends and we meet whatever South American events which we decide to attend. Normally we give one of our machines as a prize for best black n grey tattoo, best realistic and best tattoo of the convention. And pretty soon, he was winning all the machine prizes!! We decided to start giving him machines in order to let other artists have a chance to win one of our prized machines.



This is some of the best work to be seen in tattooing. Just compare. Walk around town and take a close look at people's tattoos. Compare.



The subtle shades of greys and skin tones are not the easiest to put into the skin. Over time, the experience of doing this type of realism becomes easier and easier and pretty soon, you get a complete understanding of how to do it, how to deal with different skin types... Training your eye / hand coordination with this type of style will prepare you to handle ANY challenge effortlessly.



Look at the shades of color in the lips. The colors blended to make a realistic tone for the lip color are hard to blend. A knowledge of painting helps to steer you in the right direction. Check the hoop in the girl's nose... very realistic.



Another masterpiece... Remember the name Javier Campos, you may be seeing him here sooner or later...

2.20.11

One of my goals this year was to start painting more often, and I'd say so far that's be a 100% success. The last few years I've barley produced anything other than drawings for tattoos. I'd paint the odd thing every now and then, but usually because it had to be done. I painted 2 skateboards last year for the Deadly Tattoos Art Show, as there was no way I was going to turn down that invite.... and that's about all I can think of for paintings in 2010.... Oh yea, I painted a really cool little beaver rose morph while doing a guest spot at Deadly last year as well. 3 paintings total....

So far this year, I've finished 2 prints, a painting for Teagan, 5 sheets of flash, and 2 longboards. So in 2 months I've already produced more than 3 times the amount I did all of last year. Pretty satisfying. And there's more to come....

I finished up the longboards that were commissioned by a client tonight. I was fairly happy with them upon completion of the painting... and then I applied this magic elixrAdding a clear coat to an acrylic painting changes everything. It just smooths everything out and give it a consistent finish. Super excited to give these to my client tomorrow. She should definitely be the first one to see them. Sorry bloggers, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

2.19.11

Paint, paint, paint, paint, paint, paint.... So here are some more pictures of cats....

1.18.11

Often times when tattooing, a client will bring a friend and as some point they'll ask me "I really want to get tattooed but it's not a sleeve or back piece, so who should I go get tattooed by?" I say "Well, me if you'd like." They're usually quite surprised and ask "but I thought you only did really big pieces. You mean you'll tattoo something that only takes a couple of hours? I feel bad, like I'm wasting your time."

In fact, the opposite is true. I actually really enjoy doing one shot tattoos that can be completed in that 1 to 4 hour range. Hell, I'll even tattoo something that takes 5 minutes if that's what the client wants.

So much time and energy goes into completing a larger tattoo, and that's if the client follows though and actually gets the tattoo finished. Smaller tattoos that can be done in one sitting are super fun, and really rewarding.

So yes, please. I don't only work on large scale designs. I'd say I'd be more than happy if my bookings were 50% larger tattoos, and 50% one shot tattoos that can be completed in one sitting.

Having said that, I tattooed a really fun one shot tattoo on my friend Tammie today. Obviously the photos are really fresh and have a ton of flash burn, but we'll get healed photos in about a month when she comes back to have her other arm tattooed. I also worked quite a bit on setting up the web store today. It should be good to go tomorrow or Sunday at the latest.

2.17.11

Day off today from the studio. Pretty exciting because I picked up the first set of prints for 2011. It was also the last painting I did in 2010. Tomorrow I'm going to work on setting up a web store via my site so they can be purchased. Small run of only 11 made for this one. I'll post more info once a store is up and ready to go.My Dad gave Teagan and I tickets to the Oilers vs Habs game tonight. Super fun! His office has really good seats and it was actually a really good, fast paced game. I say actually really good since our Oilers are in last place in the league, but decided to come out and play hockey tonight and win 4-1.

2.16.11

I found this in iPhoto today. Obviously a bit older considering the grass is buried under 4 feet of snow right now.I love my wife so much.

2.15.11

Elbow day today at the studio which is never a fun day for myself or the client. Elbows are my least favorite part of doing a sleeve, I know it really hurts the client yet I know it's an area that can't rushed. I usually prefer to slow down a bit and make sure it's in there so I don't have many touch ups if at all possible.

Dan's sleeve is coming together quickly now and we should be done everything including touch ups in one or at most two more sessions. It's always awesome when a small area gets filled and changes the tattoo completely. We maybe tattooed for 3hrs today and that small section made the tattoo look so much more full and complete. Really exciting when that happens.
I also worked on my friend Adam's lower half sleeve today, but didn't get any good photos. Way too shinny, but that's okay. His tattoo is so ridiculously crazy that I'm going to wait until it's completely finished to post photos.

2.14.11

I worked on a painting for pretty much the whole day today and made good progress. Unfortunately the client who commissioned the painting is giving it to someone as a gift, so I can't really post photos of the whole thing quite yet. However, I will post a small preview of these tiny roses because I'm really happy with them. I'll be able to post the full painting by the end of this weekend.

from: Nick
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 10:56 AM
subject: unknown calf

Hi there,

My brother got this tattoo on his calf many years ago, has no idea what it means.

Can you help????

Thanks, Love the blog.

Nick



First of all, the character is not correct. It is either missing a stroke in the left radical or having one extra. The intended character could be:

枠 means "frame; spindle, spool, reel".

or,

粋 means "pure".

This was posted in Checkoutmyink.com:


http://www.checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/inkdazfukaz/tattoo-3

Too bad 愛 is mirrored.

2.13.11

Really fun Sunday at the studio. I tattooed the back of my buddy Noel's leg this morning. Noel usually has crazy ideas that he wants to combine into one tattoo. This time we outlined a fox head in a sunburst, with a human figure from the cover of a book that he didn't like, being shot with arrows. We decided to do the figure with fairly dynamic colours, so I added a few really simple traditional roses at the bottom for balance.

The really fun part today was drawing on leaves to connect to a tattoo on the front of his shin. I stepped away from the normal leaves I draw behind roses most of the time and tried something new that I was extremely happy with. Really happy with the outline of the fox as well.

Noel wanted to stop after the outline so he could work tomorrow, and I'm totally fine with that. Unfortunately every picture I took was out of focus. This was the best one, run through a few Photoshop filters to sharpen the image.This afternoon I finished a tattoo of an old 50's Mercury, but today was my Friday and was to impatient to wait for the tattoo to stop weeping so I could take a photo. She'll be back in about a month for photos and touch ups.

Tomorrow my day off and it will be spent finishing a commissioned painting for a client. Pretty excited about that as well.

2.12.11

Maybe from now on whenever I'm tired, need to stay up and work on drawings, one day away from days off, and have no energy to blog... ...I'll just put up pictures of my cats.

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Any one of our machines... the only machines in the world who's patented parts are owned by US, it's builders!!

If you are interested in a machine seminar... like this one in Italy, contact us. Over 140 people attended!!

Let's bring professionalism to tattooing, and not tolerate the mediocrity which is now widely accepted. It's overdue. No more egos, no more attitudes...

2.11.10

It's the first ever iPhone Friday. You guessed it.... pictures from my iPhone. These are all from today. In the future, I'll post pictures I've collected through out the week.

I needed more paint todaySecond stop was corporate office supply store that I don't really like. The photocopier at the shop hasn't made a clear copy in probably 6 months. Anytime I have to make a stencil for my day, I go make photocopies of my line copy in various sizes just in case the size I traced out needs to be 10% bigger or smaller. It can be a bit of a chore first thing in the morning, but it's well worth it to have a clean copy to make a stencil with. Then I had to go look at colour proofs for prints that should be ready next week.I need a snacked for workClean grips for tomorrowInstagram is pretty awesomeI filled 2 more small spaces on Sandy today. We usually spend more time getting the stencils to fit in the spaces he has to work with than we do tattooing. Small tattoos are really fun.
Dad's are awesome.