Slippery when wet!

Quick post before i go and have all my hair cut off :( not sure..... hmmmm, might miss it a little. anyways, here's a fun little piece i did today.



Tomorrow is Ross' birthday, so come to the wanch for an 80's punk metal extravaganza!

A little birdie once told me....

Ok so i am officially up to date, present and accounted for, no longer lagging behind on my blog! Pretty easy day, started out with this pretty sweet piece which was fun to do!



Again, hard time getting a good pic, it's almost like now we have wallpaper, my camera hates me. i've been bouncing the flash off everything imaginable, including a few people's retina's (*SORRY!*) and i just cant seem to figure out what's going on.

And here's the full pic of the compass from a few days ago:



We r gonna get a mate with a good camera (and camera skills, mad skills i tell you) to get some nice shots of the brand spanking new looking studio now all the renovations r done. (i say all the renovations r done, but i lie) We, well THEY ran outta wallpaper so we still have one wall that needs doing, but pfff, thats a piece of cake eh? well, it will be when the shop gets more wallpaper in stock!

Cool, it's 9:30 and i'm done for the day, wow super early. Anyone want a walk in? I'll be here til half ten! HURRY!

shindig

So, quick post bout the gig at grappas. it was an awesome night! The best gig I've been to in Hong Kong since..... pff, i cant even remember. I didnt even miss the opening bands, well thats a lie, i rocked up after Transnoodle, no skin off my nose if ya know what i mean. Went out drinking with the bands after, only everywhere was closing up so ended up being very noneventful, thank god for Dean from El Destroyo and his Marry Poppin's-esque bag of tricks.

It was a shame so many ppl left after Go Jimmy Go and before Astrophonix played, they were the band of the night for me, f'in awesome. Anyways, u can check out Go Jimmy Go's page HERE and Astophonix HERE!

I meant to take my camera, but rushed outta work to make the gig and my mind went blank. I'm sure some good photos will surface from that night eventually.

Anyways so yesterday i hosted a little shindig myself, digging someone's shin for 3 hours. Had an incredibly hard time getting a good pic of this....it will be in full colour, but for now, its just linework and a bit of background attaching it to a not so great coi he had done in china. maybe by a blind monk.... i dunno!



Til then

Lucky in love

Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit. ~R.E. Shay

So here's yesterdays doings on a lovely lady from the U S of A. Easy customer, just let me get on with it.



She decided to get this little gem to counteract her boyfriends bad luck tattoo! hope it helps a little, there seems to be a pretty widespread luck drought going around, but i think it'll pass. She found out about the shop from an editor at Inked magazine, who did a little piece on the shop a while back.

I was gonna close early for the gig, but decided i'd rather stay open and do this piece coz as soon as she e mailed me with the idea, i was looking forward to it. love stuff like this! I love the way the heart came out, think i'll try stuff like this more often. My brother booked in soon, maybe next week, i've already drawn his piece but now i'm thinking about seeing if i cant do somehting fancy with the background, or .... oh i dunno. i'm thinking outloud, you just cant hear me coz you're not here.

So, i'm a day behind schedule on my blogs, i'll hopefully catch up soon! Tomorrow i'll post bout the gig and todays tattoo which is a nice piece, not finished but we got a fair amount done in 3 hours. More on that 2morrow y'all.

Til then.

over n out

Show me the way to go home...

I'm tired and i wanna go to bed
I had a couple drinks about an hour ago
They've gone straight to my head

So here's todays doings.



First day back at work since Mondays mayhem. The shop is pretty barren right now, but the ceiling is up, the floor is down, right where everything should be! So i guess we are "open for business", it just looks a little.... well like the ceiling caved in, and got put back up and nothing has been put back in its right place yet! understandable, no?

On my way off to Murphy's now to see Bahouki play and top up my cider deficiency. Good times, then tomorrow i'm closing slightly early and rushin' down to Grappa's to see Go Jimmy Go and Astrophonix which is gonna be fuckin' awesome.

buildings are crumbling with apathy

"It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.”

Johnny Rotten

so....looks like the studio will be back in business by friday. that by no means that everything has been resolved, but at least i'll be tattooing again, and to be honest, i kinda get a little crazy now if i'm not tattooing at least 6 days a week! So stuff will be back to it's normal stress level, and we'll just have to see how things with the landlord go about... albeit i'm not expecting anything remotely good.

so, as i was sat around twiddling my thumbs, what better way to cheer one's self up than a night at Ned Kelly's? so 4 hours of drinking and jazzing later, i'm about to go home, just stopped by the studio to print out all the reference for the tattoos booked in over the next few days that i havent had a chance to draw. luckily ross will be taking care of the builders 2morrow, so i got a whole day of unrelentless designing booked ahead of me, which is work well overdue with all the rescheduling!

just thought i'd better post a quick update, and any customers who we had to reschedule, be expecting a call on fri or sat at the latest to sort everything out!~

heres a purtttty pic of HK to cheer me up, i dunno if it helps y'all, but hey, i aint no DR Phil!

Blue blooded murder of the english tongue

bad news i'm afraid. upon opening the studio today, we came across the bleak realisation thet the false ceiling had collapsed, damaging about 60.000 HKD worth of stuff.

we had the associate for the landlord round and as useless and unhelpful as they are, we are trying to get this all resolved by sat. maybe e mail me fri for an update. obviously i am having a really hard time rescheduling my appointments, and i cant apologise enough for any inconvenience caused, i am just fucking relieved that i wasnt working on anyone at the time.

my 2 favorite tattoo machines were found on the floor under all the rubble, and i am a fraction away from bursting into tears as i type this. sorry! nobody could have forseen this happening, except maybe for the fucking cowboys the landlord employed to do the job. i'm about as pissed off as i have ever been, the shop is my baby, and right now, it feels like my baby has been abused.

here's some photos of the war zone i walked in on today.







luckily i got to work over an hour early, and ross and rob managed to call everyone booked in over the next few days. once again, i'm sorry, i dont know how we will ever afford to replace half the stuff that has been damaged, and this couldnt have happened at a worst time, right in the middle of our renovating, and it has put the renovations on the glass counters, the studio wallpaper, everything is going to be behind schedule. i think today i have exasperated the use of every swear word in the dictionary, and probably made a few up along the way. is wank-weasel in the dictionary?

oh, and for anyone who was planning on coming in, dont you worry your nelly, we are not opening until we are 100% certain that the work has been done to the best and most professional capacity possible, we had quite the yelling match with the landlord and the fucking contractor who permanently had a bloddy great grin smirked on his ugly mug. (this is the only job organised by the landlord. our contractor is a rockstar, and came by today to help with all the deliberations. good man victor, champion i say!)

please e mail the shop for any further news, as i highly doubt i'll be blogginf much the next few days, info@starcrossedtattoo.com

wagonna be late for the movie!

So here's the healed pic of the jeremy fish piece from a little while back. this pic was taken about 1 week to the day after tattooing. pretty much all totally healed, except for as little peeling round the bears feet.



Just about to leave work, so in the mean time, here's a video taken from a while back. if u have motion sickness, maybe it's best if ya dont watch this! bleeeaaaaugghhhhhh! (tomorrow i'll post the full length, coz this is only half, but i cant hang around waiting for it to upload....taking very long time laah

dancing to the beat of the humdrum

So everything is back to normal as far as the studio goes.... well, almost back to normal! Yesterday was the first day back since all the renovations, and first day back tattooing. So did session 2 on jeremy fish leg piece guy, and this one had a background. it was over 3 hours right on the back of his thigh, cant have been fun n games, but all went well and got everything i was planning on finishing finito'ed (dont use that in a game of scrabble)! so he'll be back again to get some background added to the first jeremy fish piece i did....which i still need to post a healed pic of....hopefully later. i got them, but i need them photoshopped together.

Oh, for anyone planning on coming by this week, we are actually open on WEDNESDAY and closed on THURSDAY coz we are having the renovation in the studio room finished on thurs. I cant wait til it's all over, but i love the way the shop looks now! It's like having a brand new studio!

anyways, here's todays piece, enjoy, and keep a hold of that gold of yours, this guy's on a mission.

*New star crossed artwork!*

If you're bored, then u must be boring too

So seeing as my douchebag customer yesterday flaked out on me and didnt even call ahead to say he wasnt coming, i had hours of tedious empty nothing to do time on my hands.

After a few hours painting, i finally got the new sign design finished, quick woop dee doo on photoshop to give it a black background and hey presto!



the t shirt is way more simplistic, no shading really, black, red n white with a little shading in the hair. i'm still deciding what to do with the roses on the shirt....so aint got the artwork finalised yet... but i'll post it once i do.

if you're going to San Fransisco...

Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? "Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel." ~The Washington Post

So here's todays doings. the sunflowers were started last month, so the black n the greens, and the browns..... yeah thats it, they were all healed. so we did the main bulk of colour today. the photo aint superb, but i always find it difficult getting photos of half fresh n half healed pieces. oh, the bottom right flower was already there, so i reworked it to fit in with the rest. i'd forgotten how big this piece is, and i think thats' what i like about it, its big n simple and u can see it from across the street. good stuff.



and this is the last piece of the day, nice n quick, but there's something i like about them. they were pretty tiny on a girl's wrist.

I'm in Flash Ink magazine!

So, this little gem arrived in the post today. Nice 4 page spread in Flash Ink magazine. Brightened up my day a whole bunch, especially as my appointment today cancelled on me at the last minute...so i'm sat around twiddling my thunbs. It does mean that i should have enough time to finish painting the design for the new sign though, so silver lining and all that bollocks i guess.








My big bro stopped by today too, so seeing as i was metaphorically & literally watching paint dry, we went out for a quick coffee. He's booked in for a sweet tattoo next month, so looking forward to that! I'm sure i've mentioned this before, but he is a grade A+++ customer, and pretty much lets me just get on with it, which is never a bad thing.... unless i guess you are super anally retentive, and in which case, i'm sorry. Go see a doctor.

everyone's a winner.....right...?!

The winner of a pancake-eating contest has dropped dead while accepting his prize for gorging on 43 of the banana and cream stuffed desserts.

Pancake Eating Contest Winner Chokes To Death
Boris Isayev, 48, from west Russia died on stage moments after winning the competition to mark the end of Butter Week.



The contest, which took place in the town of Chernyakhovsk, was part of festivities to celebrate Maslenitsa, the last week before the period of Lent starts.

According to local traditions, meat, fish, dairy products and eggs are forbidden during Lent, as well as dancing and parties.

Witnesses described Mr Isayev as "the most active participant in the contest" adding that he "ate all the types of pancakes on offer and won fairly".

The witness added: "He had really enjoyed the pancakes but then he started foaming at the mouth and went down like a sack of stones.

"People have fainted during the contests before."

Medics tried to revive Mr Isayev after he collapsed while collecting his prize on stage.

The exact cause of death is not clear but doctors believe he choked after a piece of pancake got lodged in his throat.

Celebrations are said to have continued after Mr Isayev's body was taken away in an ambulance.

3 year itch

So we just renewed the lease on the shop for another 3 years, and we fancied a bit of a change, so we are in the process of revamping the shop. the studio, and the backroom which (will soon be our brand spankin' new sterilization room!) moving the ultra sonic cleaner and the autoclave out the back will free up a lot of space in the studio, which will be nice.

last week we had a new ceiling installed, and in the next few weeks, we are having the shop fitted out with new walls, getting the floor fixed up a bit, and the studio is getting a pretty big revamp to boot! ooh, it's so exiting!

so to go along with the new shop, new sterilization room, and new studio, we are gonna have new signage, new t shirts, and maybe even revamp the website to match! so here's the design i've been working on for the hanging street sign (our old sign kept getting blown away during typhoons and it definately looks like it's had better days, so we dont have a sign on street level right now except for the one above the doorway.) i think that design will also double up as one of our new t shirt design...i'm guessin' white n red print on black....or maybe black n red with a thin white border.....i dunno, i'm thinkin' out loud now!

I'll get ross to fiddle around with it on photoshop and hopefully i can post some t shirt images soon. this isn't the final version for the sign (that's gonna be full colour) or the t shirt (there's gonna be a lot of black shading)but i got nothing to post before my day off 2morrow, so here's the scan of the design in question, enjoy!

I couldn't stand to be without my legs.

So... wow....crazy week. havent blogged in what feels like forever too.

We went to the AnD party at the Venetian in Macau on Thurs, it was awesome. we met up with our good buddy Tom who owns "Rascals" (pub in macau....go there and drink.) Tom's a good customer and a good friend and it was great seeing him again, especially as it took us 3 hours and 7 taxi's to find him! But anyways, the seven taxis meant we got to see pretty much all of macau in a short space of time, which was cool. i was just super bummed i didn't have my camera.

anyways, after a good few drinks that Tom ordered for me, that i had no idea of the ingredients, and most of them had to be necked, i was in a good mood and ready for what i was kinda expecting to be a mediocre night. we'd already been into the venetian, during the 3 previous hours of playing hide and seek with Tom, and i was kinda like "pffff, this place sucks." the casino has no atmosphere, the carpets looked like they were chosen by Fu Manchu on crack, and all the chairs looked like they came from Ikea. the best thing about the whole place was the ceilings.

anyways, the night ended up being awesome, the DJ was fuckin' sweet playing loads of proper old school hip hip hop(check his myspace HERE!), and mixing all sorts of goodness in amongst it. the graffiti artist was lame as hell, but maybe he doesn't use computers much, not his fault i'd imagine. Graffiti is meant to be a diservice, and sitting up on a stage with go go dancers fiddling about on a tablet seemed WHACK. That's right, i said WHACK MOFO! anyways, about 6 bottles of champagne later, we had to rush to get the 3am ferry home coz i was fully booked at work... and i dont know how, but by some miracle i made it to work EARLY, and i wasn't even hungover!

So this is a piece i did on Fri. Cool, piece all over a guy's shin, musta felt like magic.



ooh, and the jeremy fish piece strolled into the studio on fri, and it had healed PERRRRRRRFECT! already! super quick regeneration leg me thinks! i got a healed pic kickin' about somewhere so i'll try and post that soon too!

2 birds with 1 stone!

ok, so here's todays pic of choice. nice cover up that i had loads of free reign with for a change! nice easy going customer, just the way i like 'em! sat like a super pain absorbent space creature, didnt even flinch! good going and definitely 10 points well deserved.



taking 3 days off work, but not exactly "outta work" coz we'll be getting our brand spanking new ceiling in the studio this week! had to totally clear out the studio and it looks horrible. no posters, no stencils from tattoo days yonder, no nothin. it echoes like hell in a fishtank now too. anyways, i'm sure by the weekened all the crap will be back in its rightful place, and it will feel like home again!

*Sugar, spice & everything nice!*

So here's a really fun piece i just finished! As soon as i found out i was getting to do a pink donut tattoo all the clouds in my little tattoo land vanished and the sun shone down in glorious fashion, making the flowers smile and trees gently wave hello!
Anyways, here's the beauty that is THE DONUT THAT MADE MY DAY!



In other news, my appointment which i had put aside 3 to 4 hours for today didnt show up, but i'm still riding my bouncy little donut cloud playing with the care bears in their awesome little paradise, taking very organised turns with little organised ques for the rainbow slide, in the place where nobody is late and everyone gives at least 24 hours to cancel their trip on the merry go round,and i'm not gonna bitch and moan.....