Cork

deified my shin a bit with Eddy Deutsche on friday, been waiting for this one a while, stoked! What a great dude Eddy is, and totally mesmerizing to watch him work.

Session 2 with Steve Moore. Another 3 hours into the back. He wasn't lying that the lining was more painful than shading. But the shading is still pretty bad haha

From yesterday by the the all mighty Marius Meyer. Super rad guy with a burning passion for tattooing. Everybody should get something from him. As for me, this means I'll be going to job interviews in turtleneck sweaters for the rest of my life.

Ha, you can't mess with the classics! Clearly only those with distinguished taste would choose such a subject...
There will likely be some cool surprises in the background of the butt, but I'll wait until we're a little further along to post them.

First session Wednesday with Tim Lehi at Temple in Oakland. He lined the main image and some background.
Pumped to get started, pumped for the long road ahead, pumped to finally be able to contribute to this thread after ogling it for years...

First piece completed in 3 sessions with Timothy Hoyer and i am beyond stoked for it.
Upon completion of the tattoo, I decided he is doing my full back.
Gave him my ideas and he is down. Just going to save up cash then actually begin session sometime in September.
I feel I should have hit him up sooner for some work. Once healed I'll post pics.
I can honestly say for once, I currently have no upcoming tattoo appointments.

3.5 more hours of progress last week. total is about 51 hours so far and i'm guessing we have 20-25 more hours until we are finished. Legs and ass are 99% complete. Waiting until it is finished before sharing anymore full back pictures but here is a close up on my ass/leg/lower back area:

- - - Updated - - -
Also I just realized that over the past 12 months I've been tattooed a total of 63 hours (51 on my back and 12 on my front). plus ~100 hours of driving back and forth from Boston to Long Island x10, Boston to Manhattan x1, Boston to Montreal x1, and Boston to Reading PA x1.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

So here is the remainder. Kongo Yasha Myo-o in his full glory from Dana Helmuth.
This was pretty much the home stretch at this point. Once all the shading was done, the color was only about 1/3 of the remaining time I spent with Dana.
I love Dana's snakes. Once mine got colored in, I couldn't stop staring at it, I still can't. Also everyone loves the blue, and so do I. It's bold, and it'll be awesome for a long time.
I spent a lot of time at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore and it was a great shop. The final session was in Dana's tattoo lair at his home in Maryland and it's a true honor to be a member of his back piece club.
And the final obligatory baby picture, because I want to be as cool as @hogg.

Love all the pieces here!! Finished this up back in 2012 while I was living in Beijing... Done by Tang Ping (ziyou tattoos). The top right part is a cover-up. He also did a monkey king on my front but i guess that belongs on a front piece thread :D.
www.instagram.com/ziyoutattoo

He also did this tibetan skull (it won 1st at the london tat convention in 2010)... which was the piece that sold me on getting mine from him.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

I had my first session with Steve Moore yesterday and we finished up the outline for my Monkey King. I have about 48 hours of tattooing under my belt so far and this outline session was only 3 hours, but the most uncomfortable and painful 3 hours yet! I've read a lot on full backs and apparently they can be quite sharp, but I had a hard time in quite a few spots. For example, often I can keep my breathing and just flow through the pain, but this session had me clenching my jaw, face and just suffering. Steven started chatting with me and it really helped distract me.
Steve Moore is absolutely a professional. He researched tons for this piece. He looked at photographs of monkeys, martial artists, and other reference pictures. He mentioned that he debated about how to put the orientation of the Monkey King's foot and used a martial artist's monkey style to duplicate it. I think it looks amazing and the details on it just blew me away. I love how Steve put our collaboration ideas together.
Anyways, here's the drawing

After three hours of outlining



Got my next session in February. Dreading it a bit, but also very excited haha

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

Snakes and flowers make great butt tattoos.

got this lil' dude today on the side of my thigh from Joe Chatt. super great experience, lovely dude. showed me some old stencils, business cards, and flash that he'd acquired during his recent travels

only just stopped limping from the last one :rolleyes: aiming for Erl next and a large piece from my mentor before he moves back to aus

Started my sleeve w/ Jason Brooks last Saturday... First new project in over 5 years... and first visible ink :)

Some of you may have already seen this on Instagram, but I wanted to wait till I had some healed pics before posting here.
Seth Wood @ Memoir Tattoo in L.A., Started 1/14, completed 12/15.

In progress with Shige, finishing with Shakamuni to complete my triad ....

You get a butt tattoo...life goes on...and then life starts to include more episodes of you mooning people lol

Was supposed to have my next session on Christmas Eve-we got halfway down there and had to turn back around, the snow and ice were just too much. I'd felt like such a wuss, but they ended up w/a bad storm so I guess I was glad we went back home. But on the way home I called and called and the line was busy--so when I finally got thru to cancel, I said I understood how hard it is to get in to see my artist, and I would just take whatever I could. The guy says "Well, I actually just got off the phone w/someone cancelling for next Sunday-you want it?" Uh-YES! So, we trekked back down yesterday. He ended up adding some stuff to the right side top and bottom, where I thought we were done, more waves and such, added some wind to that side too, and whatever, I'll deal w/it if it means it will be an even better piece.
Hurt like a bitch this time. Not sure if it's b/c it was such a big area this time, or b/c of what time of the month it is..guys you don't care but girls you understand.

I finished my backpiece on December 30th ! Then I did a victory lap and had my tattooer/life-coach cap my wrist off with a magic dragon. It ended up on my hand with the beard on the knuckle whoops! Turned out awesome !!

Healing is a total bitch, haven't bent my wrist since last Wednesday and my hand is really raw.
I'll post a less cryptic pic in the future...my arm now is all Steve Batt 2003 / 2007 / 2015 yipee really cool to see a timeline from the same tattooer blended one into the other.