Tattoo You

I started my first tattoo yesterday at Slave to the Needle. Five hours under the needle, with another five coming in March. I decided to go out out for my first one and do a half-sleeve. I have wanted a tattoo for years but could never make up my mind on what I wanted. I finally decided on a dragon, a longhorn skull, fire and water. A dragon with fire because I was born in the year of the Fire Dragon (as was Bruce Lee, but I don’t have his moves). I chose to have a medieval dragon because of my European heritage. Water because I am an Aquarius and a longhorn skull because I’m a Texan. I left it up to the artist John Fitzgerald to figure out how to put it all together. The night before my appointment I was wondering how the dragon and the skull would work together. The dragon could hold it but then the skull would be small, I also thought it might be cool to have the dragon wearing a longhorn helmet. When I showed up John showed me what he had come up with. He had two bad ass drawings, one of a dragon and one of the skull. Since I’m not The Governator we were having issues with fitting both on my arm. I even suggested that I could save one for the other arm but he wanted to make it work and I’m glad he did. After cutting the drawings he looked at them for a minute, then placed the longhorn skull on top of the dragon head. It hit both of us at the same time, “that’s it” we said. As I mentioned earlier, I had thought of something similar the night before but had not mentioned it to John, a little bit of synchronicity I suppose. So that problem was solved and as a nice bonus I got something more unique than just a dragon. After the dragon, skull and water stencils were laid he encountered another obstacle, where to put the fire. Again I suggested I can wait until the other arm but he wanted to make it work. Fortunately for me he didn’t immediately agree with my other arm suggestions because I think it made the tattoo much better. Fast forward five painful hours and now I’m halfway through with the tattoo. I am extremely satisfied with the results so far and I can’t wait until it’s finished. He even said to a fellow artist that it was one of his favorite pieces. \m/ I will post a couple of pics in the next day or so.

For those in the Puget Sound area I highly recommend John. Not only is he an excellent artist (and I can’t stress that enough) he is a very cool guy as well. He even bought me a couple pieces of pizza halfway through the session. Click on his name above for a link to his portfolio.

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