Hello from Texas

[The Tig]

Or should I say, "howdy"?

Like most, I've lurked here for a while. My hunger for more ink has really grown now that I've crossed my early 50's for some reason. I think not giving a shit about the usual mundane trappings accepted by society might be the cause. I guess I never really gave up the punk days of the early 80's.

My first tattoo was in 1990 or '91, a small black tribal bear paw on my shoulder. Nothing to get excited about but I've always felt a spiritual connection to American Indians. In '96 I added a 7" Tigger on the back of my left calf. I was a bike racer with a pretty good sprint and the Tigger just kinda' expressed that, plus nothing like an EF'ing Disney tattoo to keep you from taking yourself too seriously!

The idea was to balance it out with a serious tiger on the opposite calf, but a divorce and endless responsibilities kept that from happening until this year. I've been searching for someone in the Houston area that can create a quality Japanese tiger and ran across several artists at Scorpion Studios. I had Tracy Lambright create something after showing him a few inspirational photos, including one of his ownworks. I told him to create what he thought would work and really like the results. Not completely Japanese, more "inspired by".

So here's the first sitting outline work back in July.

Second sitting with shading and some color. It has settled in and looks much better now.

Fresh 4 weeks ago:

I'll go in to complete it this week. I'm thinking of half sleeving the lower leg, likely a koi fish on the front. I'm also thinking about some traditional irezumi arm half sleeves down the line. I'm open to black and grey and really love traditional Japanese.

Personal stuff: I do IT security for an evil mega-corporation to pay the bills, love time with my family, playing guitars, riding road and mountain bikes, and getting some time out in nature.

I used to surf, skate, skydive, ski, work for NASA, and 7 years as a firefighter/EMT.