Finished this car up, and added the old lamp post background, I'm actually doing the same tattoo on her husband , too, not as far along on that one though.

I started this pheasant half sleeve last week, In a few weeks, I'll be adding flowers and more rocks filling the rest out.

I drew on the inner piece to finish out James' biomech half sleeve I started last year.

Worked on Zoe's roses some more, next time I'll bring down some more roses lower, and add more leaves to the whole thing.

Started this guy, background coming soon.

Added this crab to the other side of this koi I started last summer, more water next time.

Added this hanya to Tiara's inner calf, I already did the other side, and will be adding sakura and wind next time to complete it.

A little one-shot mini-koi.

Finished off both half sleeves that I started on Nikki a few years back.

 

A lot of people like these kind of posts, so I'm going to go through what goes into the making of a painting for me.

First of all is the inspiration, I was going through an old sketchbook looking for a line drawing for a tattoo, and I was checking out these study sketches for a tattoo I did around 2003. It was some underwater mech I did as a lower leg 'sleeve' from the knee down. It was one of the first tattoos I did like that, and while I would do a million things different now, I really liked those claws.

Next up was some research.....no google or other people's tattoo websites, I'm not down with lame shortcuts. I settled on kind of a lobster/prawn hybrid.

After that, I made some actual size rough sketches, I have a bunch of 24"x36" illustration board I need to use up, so I decided to fill a whole sheet. I used brush pens for this because they are good for sketching fast.

Moving on from there, I transferred the lines of the lobster, and some of the waves; and lightly sketched the rest of the background right on the board.

Once I was done with that, I began the tedious task of lining this thing out, still mostly brush pens, and a few Pitt pens and tiny brushes for the little details. I wanted it to stand out from far away, but reveal little details and patterns as you get close up on it. Then I started blocking in the water bars and finger waves with watercolor ink.

Starting the color with some light washes.

Many washes later, and time to overlay patterns of opaque liquid acrylic on top.

The final painting, I took this pic before I remembered to sign it. Only thing left to do now is scan this in sections, join them in photoshop, and make any adjustments before making prints.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the original yet, maybe sell it, or hang at the studio.

 

 

 

 

 

Starting a new painting amidst the technology loop.

Main office at Tatmaker Industries.

It's important to sync bbqing with painting.

Prints of this real soon.

In prog. 7/10th sleeve.

Glenn's arm, part fresh, part healing, part healed.

In prog. mech coverup sleeve.

 

X-ray shells

In prog. St. Mike sleeve.

This is what happens when my appts. don't show up...

Print final help...

Finished up most of the Aaron Cain add on piece.

Thumbnail study and lines for some mech I did last year.

I gotta get finished pics of this thing.

Ballpoint boredom madness, this is usually happens when I'm on the phone.

Tattooed my take on the old jim phillips cory o'brien graphic, that was fun, did a lucero one too, but didn't get any pics.

It's the motion in the ocean, or something like that...

2006

Dug out some flash originals from 1997, the designs on this sheet alone are literally on a few thousand people.

2003, hangs in my foyer...

Represent.

New painting maybe?

Bye!

some celtic butterflies, gotta get healed pics of all 4 at once...

 

some newer paintings...

More soon!

Hey, I have some new prints of the 'tatmaker' and 'tatfink'. I'm doing these as a set for $40 including shipping (in U.S.) As always, they are printing with archival ink on Epson Velvetfine paper (very nice, thick, textured stuff).

I think I'm going to pair up the red guy with some cool lettering for some shirts in the near future.

The green guy is a definitely a nod to some of the weird little green characters I would see from awesome skateboard artist Jim Phillips. I also tattooed it on my longtime coworker, Uncle Pauly.

On the original, I used metal flake green, and it came out sick.

Anyway, if you are interested in the prints, or getting tattooed for that matter, hit me up at tatmaker75@gmail.com, and I will give you the paypal info.

Thanks.

so i finally tattooed uncle pauly the other day....

worked on ronnie's fishing half sleeve, one more sitting to go.

made this guy for part of my new site i am working on.

he should be in print form too (and maybe shirts), along with a finished version of the tat fink at the top of the page.

currently i am working on a new site that will be combining my portfolio site and this one into one, on a new platform, under the domain www.tatmaker.com

all the old blog posts and content will be imported into it, and so will the ability to follow.

 the new site will have more features, maybe have some video, and be designed with devices like the ipad in mind.

i've also added the twitter plug in to the right side of this column. i will be posting a lot more random photos on there, i've already been on there for a few weeks.

a little walk in eagle.

worked some more on bill's tiger sleeve, next up: some giant paws, rocks, and more bamboo.

lines for some recent random tattoos....

found this shellmech sketch from 2002 while i was cleaning out my art room, thought it was pretty crazy.

half sleeve of roses design from last friday's appt..

remember when all your customers looked like this guy??

Lupe is the new part of my crew, she, like one of my other dogs, Brisket, comes from New Jersey

by way of the animal alliance foster network. she tips the scales at a whopping 5 lbs.

busted out this snake dagger jam the other day.

finished the back of my new business card, the front is actually the header of this blog for now.

just threw down the first sitting of another half sleeve/chest panel deal.

this samarai hot stuff was fun, not the best photos though, love doing this kind of thing.

speaking of new jersey.....

Glen finally came by for a few healed pics of the tat i finished up a couple of months ago...

next blog should be up quick, got a whole bunch of new tats and drawing ready to go!