price of tea in china

so, i havent had much time to blog since i got back from china, but here's another installment of my frantic 24 hour holiday!



this little dude was sitting outside the venue, he wasn't in the best of moods coz a dog had just cocked it's leg on him about 5 seconds before this photo immortalised him looking so pissed (mind the pun)



and this beauty is tattooed on the stomach of the bassist from SKO. He showed it to me before (when they played in HK) but i had to get a photo to share with y'all!

Up next are some choice options from the menu at the restaurant we ate at:
(Awesome food by the way, cheap and cheerful!)









ok gotta go work, but will finish this soon!

we aint got no place to go, so let's go to the punk rock show!

ok so i am back from my manic china escapades and have caught up on the sleep i was deprived of from staying up about 40 hours straight!
we didnt get to see much of beijing, but we had a fucking blast! i really wish we coulda stayed longer, and we have definate plans to go back, maybe to work the beijing convention sometime. i had so many people interested in getting work by me, and all sweet ass stuff i'm into!
OK so the show started off with SKO, who've played gigs for us in HK before so it was good to catch up with them. They were super hospitable, and took us out after the show for dinner/breakfast...more on that later!

Here's a few choice pics of SKO:





i have appointments due any minute so i'll have to finish this post later, so that's it for now, many more pics to come.....

3's the magic number.

So i am now fully booked until mid June which is great, and yet makes me wonder, why the hell have i had 3 cancellations this week?! one is probably gonna reschedule, one is a douche, and one had to leave the country early. i'm not saying which is which, but i will say that i didnt get to do that geisha i was so looking forward to doing :(
so for anyone interested in getting a walk in, swing by tomorrow, i have absolutely nothing booked in now coz i had the whole day put aside for a big dragon. at least it looks like my day off this week will actually be a day off and not a manic get stuff drawn day for the week!

Maybe i'll colour ross' throat...or maybe i'll finish that painting i started, or maybe i'll just sit around pissed off my time got wasted...

who knows!

anyways, in other news, I'm going to beijing on fri for...well i get there at 4pm and i leave at 8am. so i'm hoping i find a nice bar to pass out in for a few hours! Gonna go see MxPx...so exciting!



(and yes i know, i am probably a little old to be so excited about seeing them, but i've been a huge fan since i was like, 13 and they r one of my few favorite bands that are still together.) so i'm a little giddy ....giddy giddy giddy!)

doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun....

ok so busy busy day again. so here's what i got up to....

so starting the day i had this summery piece of goodness. it was kinda hard to get a good pic, my camera has really been playing up, and i've been having the hardest time getting the external flash to work. plus....no matter what angle i took the pic from, one of the deers faces looked a little distorted. its right up on her shoulder blade, and if i held the camera too high, i got crazy glare! like "BAM!"



ok then i did this piece. its on a kiwi who was only here for a few weeks, and he originally wanted the full sha-BANG! background and all that fancy stuff, but all i could squeeze in before he left was the dragon all on its lonesome. even that kept me working til the wee hours of the morning.



tomorrow is another crazy busy day, i booked in a last minute piece on another guy who's just dropping by hong kong, and i really shouldn't have....(but its a cool traditional geisha he brought in and i couldnt resist!) coz i'm gonna go see sham 69 play....but i'm hoping i'll finish work and still make the gig...... god i better or i'll be so pissed. SHAM 69! cant go wrong!

Tuesday's child is full of grace

OK, so here's the post that woulda shoulda been posted yesterday, but after 8 hours tattooing and finishing work at well past midnight, once again, i just couldnt bring myself to! Instead, we went to the wrap party of a tv show bout tattooing thats done a little filming here in Hong Kong. One of my customers got a fighting cock by Ami James on his shoulder blade, Nunez and Yoji (spelling?!) were also in town, and it was a pleasant surprise to see good ol' Jimmy Ho (his Dad was HK's first tattooist and he's kinda one of the forefounders of Hong Kong's small little tattoo "scene" if you can call it that.

Here's my favorite piece from yesterdays madness, it's a cover up (she had CHELSEA and a star on her wrist but i forgot to take a before pic)



Yesterday absolutely wore me out, and even though today was my day off i've been crazy busy going to the opening of the huge art fair at the convention centre (it was really good and i recommend it highly) i love art show openings, free booze and all that jazz.
To name a few artists who really stood out for me are:

Lin Tianlu
:phunk
Callum Innes
Hua Qing
Ben Quilty
and last but by no means least, one of my personal favorites from right here in Hong Kong, Simon Birch.

Dead arms tell no tales.

So i'm a little outta date with my blogs, so heres one that shoulda been posted on Monday, only i didnt finish work til about midnight, and by the time i had designed tuesdays tattoos, it was 5am! It's been an insanely hectic week, i've been working my arse off and i feel like sleeping for a week.

Anyways, a mate of mine, Captain Danny (he used to be the most ruthless and toothless pirate in all the seventeen seas...yes seventeen....this was a long long time ago!) left Hong Kong on wednesday for good, and we had to cover-up this piece that's been driving him crazy before he set sail to Canadian shores. I really had no idea what to cover this with, especially as it had to fit into his nautical themed sleeve to be.... and i dunno how, or why, but in a drunken cab ride home at about 4am a few days before his appointment, i suddenly thought we could cover it with a ships wheel. It was not an easy cover up, especially as it was on his elbow and it was kinda limited to size as he has stuff below this piece.

It was a difficult one to design, and we were pretty pushed for time, but we stated at half four, and Danny sat like a champ for a good 6 hours.



Here's the whole lot we managed to do that day.....



And just to keep y'all informed on all things pirate, here's some lesser known ( and some of my personal favorite ) pirate phrasing for your viewing pleasure:

Poop deck - the part of the ship farthest to the back, which is usually above the captain's quarters. This is not the bathroom.
Man-O-War - pirate's ship outfitted for battle
Scurvy dog - the pirate is talking directly to you with mild insult
Son of a Biscuit Eater - insult directed towards someone you don't like
Three sheets to the wind - someone who is very drunk. One sheet is mildly drunk and four sheets is passed out.
Blow me down! - expression of shock of disbelief akin to "Holy Crap!"
Dead men tell no tales - phrase indicating to leave no survivors

*RoSsEs*

"Ross' roses"



Stayed back late at work coz Ross just couldn't bring himself to stop nagging me to tattoo his throat!
He's saying he'll never get in coloured now, but i'll be surprised if he doesnt! I'll make him just so i got the photo! haha



I can't decide what i love more about this photo, Ross' face or my hair! haha

deep throat

so today i had the pleasure of tattooing Moy from OI! Squad's throat. We had the best intentions of finishing it as a one shot, but alas, the pain prevailed!
It's gonna look way better once it's coloured in, but as i've nothing better to post as of yet, here ya go....





tomorrow may not be as fully booked as it says in the appointment book, because i have another customer who is the "exception to the rule" apparently. i had no idea some of my customers happened to be omnipotent beings who dont have to give 24 hours notice, to cancel? i dont make exceptions to the RULE, thats what RULES are for!
anyways, as soon as we get new appointment cards, we r changing it to 48 hours or 72, coz 24 hours is still pushing it if i gotta juggle customers.
anyways, tomorrow....walk in's anyone? or maybe i'll finish the tigerlady.... or just twiddle my thumbs. oh JOY!

Is there something on my face?

ok so it's gone 12am, so technically it's my day off now....and i'm still at work. doesnt seem right, right?! anyways, here's what i got up to at the earlier on today, it's a cover up of a non descript Disney character. i think i deleted the before pic, but it doesnt matter too much...i'm getting used to either not taking one, or deleting them, or losing them in the mass if files that start with "DSC...." on my computers!



it's not the best pic in the world, but this was session 2 and what had healed was still very shiny...if i was a magpie i woulda tryed to fly off with his leg me thinks....

ok anyways, then i doodled out this and i just finished lining it when i noticed how late it is now.



looking back i wish i'd put a lily in her hair then this piece could be "Tigerlily" but NO...didnt happen. doom i tell ya.
anyways, i'm gonna take this home and maybe, if beer o clock doesnt come too early in the day, maybe then i'll get her finished.

i aint got no technology to blog with at home, so til thurs...

Bird of pray for salvation!

OK, so yesterday was quite possible the longest day ever. really, like in the history of time.

I had to get to work early coz i had the entire design to draw before opening, managed to get it done on time, so by the time my 4:30 appointment showed up, we were good to go. I had the entire day put aside for this guy, coz not only were we doing this piece, but also fixing up a piece he recently got done on holiday. I figured we'd start with this piece first, in case he didn't sit too great and all i got to do was the fix up!



OK so i'm a retard, and after complaining about how many outlines were in the last piece i did, i think i topped the outline time taking charts with this one! (well, it's a mixture of lots of outlines, and sun damaged skin. it took soooooo sooooo soooo long to get the outline in solid n clean. ) Halfway through this piece i realized this was gonna be a long, long, long day. this was about 5 to 6 hours work, and after this, we did another 2 hours on the fix up. i was dead by the end of it. i think yesterday turned out to be a 12 hour day by the end of it all. the worst thing was, i couldn't even get a really good photo, but i figured i'd post it anyways, coz my back deserves it!

today and tomorrow are much easier days, thank god, and i'll hopefully have something else to post soon!
til then y'all, til then.....

Tattoos are for Sailors and Prostitutes!

So, the australian navy arrived, and my customer who had booked in about a month ago got one of 2 pieces we were planning on doing. After a solid 4 and a half hours on his stomach, he decided to call it quits, and to be honest, i was glad coz this piece took it outta me! I hate tattooing stomachs at the best of times, and looking back, i'm a retard for putting so many bloody lines (that's bloody as in fuckin' not bloddy as in ooze!) into this piece! haha, nevermind, it's done and "knuckle dusted"!



He was happy, i was happy he sat so still even though he hated me for a good 3 of the 4 and a half hours i was working on him. poor guy, i really get uncomfortable when the customer has clearly had enough and we're no way near finishing, but like a trooper, a trooper of the sea, he sat through it like a champ! This is pretty much the best pic i got, there's a glare on a scar he has, towards the bottom left, but that was in all the photos.

Got another cool piece in tomorrow, not on a navy guy, just a guy, traveling around. gonna fix up a recent piece he had done and do a new piece on the other arm. Finally, some pieces worth blogging about!