Brrrrrrrrighton

holy crap it's cold in brighton! who chooses to put a convention on top of a hill in freezing cold windy conditions?! crazyness.

anyways, other than cold ears, the convention was pretty sweet! sat started off pretty slow, couple o' walk in's though so no love lost, but sunday was pretty rad. did 2 sweet pieces, finished just in time to catch up with old and new friends, and have a last minute nosey round. Oh, and i sold more t shirts than i've ever sold at a convention before!

here's what i spent most the day sunday doing on Miss Stacy, a fellow tattoo inflictor....

we went through a few different ideas for designs, but when i found out she was thinking of a cupcake tat i took that and ran with it.... i ran far away with a huge grin on my face.

So back in London, picked up Milo today who i missed dearly. Poor little guy has been limping all weekend apparently, i'm not sure why so i may have to take him to the vet if old fashioned rest doesn't suffice. Poor little guy.

OK, gotta go get some designs done, so til next time, wrap up warm, stay away from hills, and always say yes to cake! (andy.... no smart comments please)

Brighton bound

So, todays the last day at the shop before the Brighton convention. So it's kinda like a bit of a last minute give dog to friend/tattoo/pack/haircut/post office kinda deal. Have to admit, i'm looking forward to just getting away for a few days. These last few weeks have been super stressful for reasons i will not bore y'all with.

Got the shirts printed, even got some hoodies n vests to boot! Also dug out some prints i had left over from hong kong, so please come enquire if u r interested.

So i'll quickly post this weeks tattoodles, and get back to sorting out work stuff.

First up is today.... Young chap was visiting London for the day and got this....

Hmm, what else did i do?.... oh, Belle came and got her cover-up half sleeve finished. The top half is still super shiny coz it's pretty fresh.... but u get the picture (mind the pun).

oh, and Layla came in for session numero 3 on her dragon. The cover up seems to be holding up nicely with that peony, but again shiny and fresh. I think we only left it 1 week between the last session.

ok so thats your lot. If you are coming to Brighton, i guess i'll see ya there.... if you're not, have a good weekend nonetheless.

Til next time...

dedi/relo cation

holy smokes. my customer today has been following my work for something stupid like 3 years. the reference she brought in was a super old screen shot of my old studio's site in Hong Kong. So anyways, she tracked me down (seeing as we are on the same side of the world now it wasn't too hard)... and got herself some new ink.

So here's what we did....

It's a cover up of this antique rather sad rose......

In other news.... i just found out about this holy crap, that's the most insane line up.... and i'm kinda gutted coz i highly doubt i'm gonna be able to save enough cash to go.  donations? anyone?

Gung Hay Fat Choy!!!!

For all my Hongkies..... I know it's early, but i didn't know what else to draw.....

Apologies if the Chinese ain't right..... i tried.

So yeah, threw that together today for y'all. Have a good new year, party hard, and have a drink for me.

c'mon baby light my fire

so quick post of a sketch i just did.... got a neck tattoo next. i hate tattooing necks. bah. (don't expect photos either, it's just script n dates.) double bah.

looks like tonight i might be heading to some pop punk night... dubious.... hmmmm.....

if there's no weasel it'll definitely get a thumbs down.

bits n bobs

Quick post as i'm wrapping up for the day. First up is Will's newest addition to his broken edge collection....

amazing. if you don't get it, don't sweat, and if you do get it.... you're awesome.

So today amongst more script.... i did a second session on the dragon backpiece i started pre-xmas....

Today we added the peonies, some more blossoms, and got that cover-up outta the way.

apologies for the glare.... it's only in prog though, so it ain't the be all and end all.

Had a nice relaxing day off yesterday, joined my local Blockbuster and rented this whilst Ross opted for this and this  (mine was the best)...

and i baked another batch of vegan cupcakes for Miss Kirsty... seeing as i had soya milk that was about to go to waste, i figured why not. This time they were lemon and coconut. No photos, but i'm sure y'all will manage.

caked

so... last few days have pretty much revolved around cake.

First up, is the fantabulous Al Overdrive's birthday... we met in an awesome little pub called the Mucky Pup. Best thing about it is it's super dog friendly. Second best thing about it is the fact you get a bloody Mary inclusive when u order a Sunday Roast. Third best thing is the fact a barman entrusted us with a knife to cut the cake and didn't give us a lecture about using it responsibly. good pub.

that's not me trying to do arty fart photography.... it's the only pic i got.

So then we rolled out to the Rio cinema to catch the latest installment by the cool cats who host the magnific cigarette burns screenings. This is the 2nd time i've been along to their screening, the 1st time was a zombie biker flick from the 70's .... the title escapes me though.

My only complaint is that it's always 4am by the time i get home, but seeing as it's always a Saturday night, it's never life complicatingly awkward. The film this time was Street Trash.... here's a wiki-synopsis for y'all....

The owner of a liquor store in lower Manhattan finds a case of cheap wine ("Tenafly Viper") in his basement. It is over sixty years old and has gone bad, but he decides to sell it to the local hobos anyway. Unfortunately, anyone who drinks this Viper melts away in a hideous fashion. At the same time, an overzealous cop is trying to get to the bottom of all the deaths. The movie is littered with darkly comedic deaths and injuries. It also contains the notorious "severed privates" scene where a group of homeless people play catch with the severed genital of one of their number, as he futilely attempts to recover it.

Cool thing is, once u got a ticket, and as you're cuing to get your movie time alcohol fix, they were handing out none other than Tenafly Viper for free!  Behold.......

So yeah, all in all a good night/morning.

Next day, I headed down to Covent garden with the best dog ever where i found a cute little cupcake shop.....

Banoffee brouhaha..... ( it wasn't called that in reality, but in my head..... yup)

So after a quick shop where i got 70% discounts on everything (won't go into detail, but fingers+pies=awesome)... i went home and started baking Kirsty who works at Flamin 8 her belated vegan baked goods. I was originally gonna make chocolate brownies with a tofu substitute for egg, but i couldn't find half the ingredients.... and gave up. So seeing as cake was on the mind and in the belly, i figured i'd make some vegan cupcakes.

I've never made any sort of vegan cake before, and was a little cautious to put it mildly. They came out awesome though.....

they are vanilla cupcakes with a strawberry jam centre and vanilla buttercream frosting. it was kinda weird using vegan ingredients, and to be honest, when the batter was ready to in the oven i wasn't entirely sure if i'd forgotten something vital coz it didn't seem as thick as i'm used to, but they rose well and are surprisingly tasty. i wouldn't know they were vegan unless ya told me. so yeah, success!

ok, enough about cake. suppose i should at least blog 1 tattoo to prove i still work. to be honest, it's been pretty busy, but nothing really blog-worth, lots of smaller pieces, and flowers, all good stuff, but just not blog worthy. ah fuck it, here's a fun walk in i did the other day that's gonna have to tide y'all over til next time.

Haters can blow us....

... they don't even know us.

So crazy few days have passed, and now i feel it's time to share. So on Tuesday it was my Birthday... and on Monday Ross organised a surprise party....

Fruitbag* did an awesome little set.... Pieman* made an awesome little music stand.

*spellcheck is not keen on my friends names.... at all.

Will and peeps

the likely gals

Gary killing some shit. 

Seamus either tying to choke me to death or be very affectionate. 

Was a good night, i got 2.... yes TWO cakes! We ended up in the good ol' Mixer, where the bouncer ended up kicking us out at closing in a very unprofessional manner. douchebag.

So then i woke at stupid o' clock with the worst toothache ever..... and here begins my official birthday.

What i will tell ya is a throbbing tooth is the quickest way to eliviate any sort of post drinking head grog. really. 

spent the morning trying to:

 a) find a dentist 

b) find a dentist that didn't cost a million pounds

c) find out if it's possible to find a dentist who doesn't cost a million pounds.

long morning. anyways, i thought i had an appointment for later that day.... i'll save y'all the long story about why that didn't come to fruition. Anyways, met my Mum for lunch, although i wasn't exactly in a fit state for attempting to chew.... 

Later that night we had my real Birthday drinks. I wasn't suprised a lot of people who spent the night out previously didn't make it due to work or head grog... but we still had a nice little get together. 

Here are some terrible photos of that night....

apologies to everyone who wasn't in my camera's peripheral vision... maybe the lack of photos is for the best anyways, eh?

So onto the presents.... i got some cool shit, unfortunately i didn't take pics of what Ross got me, but it was this and this and this and this  which i've been trying to get hold of for a while. i lost my last copy and i love this film.... probably coz i love paul kaye.... but yeah. happy.

so i got some cash from family, and decided if i didn't buy myself something it just gets swallowed up with normal stuff....groceries, travel, crap and it never feels like a present. So i went out and bought this guy....

he's probably bigger than milo.

and at work, Naresh got me these....

yes, that is a star trek luggage/passport set

and yes, that's a klingon bird-of-prey corkscrew, which when u take it out of the packaging resembles the meanest looking knuckleduster ever.

So that's the end of this long kinda pointless blog. Anyone wondering bout the tooth, it's on it's way out, which means yet another wisdom tooth crunching bullshit experience. I'm gonna definitely procrastinate on that one, right or wrong.

Got the tattoo bug

(thanks for the pun Harry)

So this is what i did today. Can't post a long super eloquent explanatory blog about this coz i'm in between customers....

but thought i'd share!

had fun with this one. good times

Shouldn't have quit his day job

So, 1st post of the year, i've been pretty busy, and getting somewhere with internet has been.... trying.

Anyways, 1st up is a cover up i started yesterday.... I'm gonna post the after pic first, in case people glance at my blog and think the before pic is my work!

had fun with this one, still a fair way to go, but the bulk of the cover up is done n dusted, much to her relief. Long story short, some guy quit his job as a well paid lawyer coz becoming a tattooist is the done thing.... and this is what he cooked up outta his kitchen (keep in mind she asked him for a sugar skull with roses....)

awesome.

Anyways, this is what i got up to today... (cropped the bottom out coz it's an extension of a piece not done by me)

this was a fun one too, and tomorrow i got another cool piece in! can't complain.

In other news, here's some interesting stuff i saw this week and thought i'd share.

Oh, i also got name dropped in Total Tattoo this month by the lovely Miss Nina Kate, and they published another pic of my handy work they snapped at some music festival. I gotta say, i still get all chuffed every time i see a tattoo by me in a mag. I hope that never stops (the being chuffed AND the being published.) just to clarify. til next time y'all.