My New Valerie Vargas Tattoo (Soho far, Soho good)

It’s been over fourteen months in the planning but today I had my first sitting with internationally renowned tattoo artist Valerie Vargas.
I have to go back in three weeks to have the colouring done, but I’m so chuffed with it that I just can’t wait till then to show it off.

When Valerie Vargas met Raquel Rouge

I’ve been wanting a tattoo for years but it was something I never really got around to. I had all of the usual dilemmas of what to have, and who to trust to do it, but when I came across Valerie’s work my mind was made up there and then. She has such a fabulous style – an update of traditional tattoo art but with a really classy and feminine edge.
Just have a look at her work. There’s no wonder she’s so in demand.

Just another couple of brilliant pieces of Valerie's amazing art

After first contacting Valerie I had a long twelve month wait for our first meeting – plenty of time to work out what to have done. I knew it had to be pin-uppy and the vintage camera was a given, but I wanted something a bit different from the obvious thrusty hip and legs akimbo calendar girls. It’ll come as no surprise that I’m a fan of the godfather of pin-up art Alberto Vargas and it was one of his more unusual head and shoulder images that ended up forming the basis of the design. I love it for being softer and more demure than sassy, and the addition of roses are just a classic tat thing and one of Valerie’s signature motifs.

The inspiration behind the art

From that first phone call, to my initial consultation, to the session today, Valerie has just been lovely – enthusiastic and an ultimate pro. I’m now dying to get back to Frith Street Studio in Soho and get some of that vibrant colour work to finish off my lady.
And yes, she is going to have red hair.

Love Hate Or Hate Love

I don’t know what it is with Willem and feet, but he seems to tattoo an awful lot of them if you ask me.
It’s starting to creep me out.

But then again, even if he is a creepy, old, weirdo, bearded foot lover, he still makes them look good.
This foot is one part of a pair of feet, amazing isn’t it? The guy actually has two feet, he’s a freak of nature.
The cool thing about it is that Willem is also going to do his other foot with a love theme, but more on that when we get there.
For now, have fun! Enjoy the weekend, and tell your mom you love her.

3-D Tattoos

 

Back When Old School Was Just School

Old school to the bone.

Swallow bones that is.
I got news today from our beloved Merlijn, that our stickers will be in tomorrow! Just in time, before we leave to London this friday. So be quick and come get some.
I also decided to postpone the final date of the competition a couple of weeks, seeing that we had a little delay with the stickers.

New Free Mermaid Tattoo

Fallen Angel has placed a new free mermaid tattoo in their lucky board!

This tattoo set includes the shirt, undershirt, pants, and underpants layers.
Arigato to Tukihana Boa for this great gift!

My WordPress Tattoo

Last month, I asked for input on where I should put my WordPress tattoo. After over a hundred votes sent in via, blog comments, Twitter, and email, I announced on the first of this month that I would be getting my new tattoo on my inside wrist/forearm. Well, as promised, I got the tattoo on my birthday… well the day before my birthday, but I’m hoping that you won’t hold that against me.
One of the most important things about a tattoo is originality. You can’t go into a tattoo shop and pick a design off of the wall. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a tattoo that 100 maybe 200 other people around the world may have. I came up with the idea of getting a “skin tear”, a popular kind of tattoo which simulates a tear in the skin to reveal something else underneath. In this case, I thought that a motherboard would be cool. So, to give the tattoo artist, Kevin, an idea of what I wanted, I photoshopped a motherboard with a WordPress logo incorporated into it. Of course there is way too much detail in this image to possibly put into a tattoo, but I wanted something that the Kevin could reference while designing my tattoo. (colors, shapes, etc.)
Based on the description of what I wanted and the image I provided, Kevin came up with this design. There was however, one correction that I asked Kevin to fix. Thank goodness for my Fairy Blog Mother who told me the difference between the real WordPress logo and the many fakes that can be found on the net. After that simple correction, we were set to start inking! Of course, Geek that I am, I couldn’t resist Tweeting the experience from my handy dandy never leave home without it iPhone, which you can see in the image on the right of this post.
  
 

If you ever want a tattoo be sure to call Kevin at TNT Tattoo!

TNT Tattoo: 99-016 Kamehameha Hwy., Aiea, Hawaii 96701 (808) 486-4TNT

High Res image of my WordPress tattoo.

Tattoos and Hair Raising Hair Lines

I guess I can’t call you that any longer since you did something surprising/startling/new with your hair. While it’s obviously still very thin in places you’re cut off the bangs into a Daniel Mead.

Eric Mabius (Daniel Mead – “Ugly Betty”) could eat crackers in my king sized bed any night of the week if I were free and single and younger.
I’ve heard speculation you’re had hair plugs or Hair Club For Men or some other artificial means of hair raising when the new do appeared. Not sure it’s not just your natural hairline. Looks better than those bangs. You know what they used to call bangs in the pre-Victorian era? Lunatic fringe.
Tempted to nickname you ‘Peanut’ Never noticed before how weird the shape of your head is.
Heard you attended the 2010 Ezra Open in my hometown of New Orleans. Good on you. My hometown needs all the help it can get. So how drunk did you get on Bourbon St?
And this week you’re flying out to Africa to help the UN Foundation. Another good on you. But… drink lots of bottled water and watch your step.  Take the prophylaxis drugs they give you and prepare for an unforgettable experience. I’m pretty sure the only large wrinkled-skin mammals you will see there will not be your retarded frau tard pack. And the elephants probably smell better too.
But what’s with the nibbled down to nothing fingernails? Nasty habit that will surely expose you to some nasty unknown germs on the African continent if you chomp and chew your nails there.
So now I’m done with the pushy advice and speculation that pops in my mind when I listen to what your tards are talking about. The biggest weirding me out thing your tards have been up to was that shitaeously ugly tattoo of Andy Skib some proud fantard got.

I saw this much earlier in the week at several boards and today at Top Idol. It’s super-creepy looking. At first I didn’t know exactly what it reminded me of until I was channel surfing and saw a few seconds of one of those prison life specials on MSNBC. Some prisoner had one the same size and color as this freaky looking Andy. Except his was of some chick with big hooters and flames behind her head.
There’s nothing wrong with getting a tattoo per se but your tards take it way too far into the creepy and inappropriate territory. I’ve heard tales of your tour bus logo ending up on someone’s rubbery floppy dugs and The Mid West Kings logo on someone elses back along with loads of poorly executed song lyrics on various body parts.  Glad no one has tried to get your face on their back like one of Adam Lambert’s Sparkle Cows did (Hitler Lambert)

I think the thing I find the most disturbing about these tattoos, other than the fact that most of these women are going to seriously regret tattooing the face of a fleeting crush permanently on their bodies as they age and sag, are the subjects. No, not Madam, let some Sparkle Cow put the Glittery Faking Alien on their heinies. It’s the fact that they are putting the face of a nice young kid like Andy, young enough to have emerged from most of their vaginas, on themselves. It’s just sick and wrong on so many levels.

Plans for a New Tattoo

For a while now I’ve been researching what tattoo to get next, and where. I knew I wanted something that symbolises Scotland and had already narrowed my choice down to a thistle. I had also taken some pics of my top torso, where you can see my existing tattoos, so that I could try to figure out where best to place it.
Well, today I’ve finally come up with a result. After playing around with Photoshop, I’ve narrowed my selection down to two thistle tattoos, on my chest. I want it to be quite big and colourful. See the two options on the pics below. I’m also thinking of including a piece of text above it, in Celtic font, saying NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT, which is the motto of the order of the thistle, anad means ‘No one touches me with impunity’, or:

A more colloquial translation into English would be “No one attacks me and gets away with it.” Similarly, in Scots this is usually rendered as “Wha daur meddle wi me? “, which more literally means “Who dares meddle with me?”

I mean, I’m not really the revenge-type, but I think it might look neat written in Celtic font (it doesn’t look that good when you just write text and arch it in Photoshop…). Plus, combined with a big fat thistle tattoo, it symbolises protection. I’d be protected from all evil
Which one is better? I think the big fat green one fits my personality more and also fits in better with my existing tattoos. BTW it’s going to be quite painful, as this area of my body is really quite bony, especially now that I’m quite thin, and you can feel the ribcage right underneath.
Well it can’t hurt as much as the big one on my lower back… and anyway, what doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger
Once I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to take the design to a few tattooist here in Edinburgh. I’ll definitely have it done up here and not anywhere else, e.g. in London, as that would defeat the object. I’m very much looking forward to it. I haven’t had a tattoo done in a while – the last one was about 6 years ago – it’s time for a new one!

How Tattoos Work

One might ask themselves how in the world does a tattoo stay on your skin forever? I mean, I’m pretty sure that most people are aware that we as human shed are skin all the time. So one might wonder how does the ink from our tattoos never fall off as well. Well in this post I will explain the whole process of how and why tattoos stay on our skin forever.
First you should know that a tattoo needle punctures you skin up to 50 to 3,00 times a minute when getting a tattoo. The tattoo needle punctures the cells of the dermis which is the second layer of the skin. Our skin consists of three layers: the epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous tissues. The epidermis, is the outer layer of skin that acts as a protective barrier and contains no blood vessels. Below the epidermis, is a thicker layer called dermis and that is where tattoos go.
Since we as humans are constatlly sheding the top layer of our epidermis, tattoo artists push ink through the epidermis and leave it in the dermis. The dermis pretty much stays the same throughtout our lifetime, hince the reason why tattoos are so permanant.
However, there is a science to tattooing, you have to be extra cautious that you only penetrate the skin 1.5 mm. If you go any further than that you will reach the subcutaneous layer and you don’t want to do this. It will more than likely be extra painful, bleed more and your tattoo will end up being blurry. Of course there are places on your body that need to be penetrated deeper and other places that don’t need to be penetrated as deep. A skilled tattoo artist knows the depths and boundaries on how far to penetrate your skin.

Tattoo Tips For First Timers

Deciding to get a tattoo is a fun and exciting decision in ones life, but you should also be aware of a few little things before you jump the shark and get inked. There are several tattoo tips out there and several people may give your different ones, but there a several general rule of thumb tattoo tips that every first timers should be educated on before going to the tattoo parlor or studio and getting inked.
Below are a few rule of thumb tips:
* First and foremost you want to be certain the tattoo parlor you choose has the proper sterilizing equipment like an autoclave. You also want to make sure they have bio-hazard container to dispose of bloody objects and needles.
* Make sure your tattoo artist is knowledgeable, well mannered and helpful. Some tattoo artist have attitudes and or quirky personalities if you are not comfortable with that, then simply find another tattoo artist.
* A good tattoo artist will be able to answer any question you may have about tattooing if they don’t know then they should be able to ask someone or find out for you.
* A good tattoo artist will also double check that you are satisfied with your tattoo design before the start tattooing it on you.
* A good tattoo artist will wear fresh disposable gloves, they open a new needle in front of you and they use fresh ink.
* The tattoo artist will provide you with clear and easy to follow aftercare instructions.

Celebrity Tattoos: Katy Perry

When one thinks of the, I kissed a girl singer the last thing that comes to their mind is tattoos. This is the best thing about tattoos. People who you would never think to have one has one. This also just goes to show that the stereotype on tattoos couldn’t be more wrong. It is usually those shy, good girls from next door that have a secret love for tattoos. With that being said, Katy Perry does have a tattoo of her own and it just so happens to be in a rather visible place.
Katy has a tattoo on her left wrist. Her tattoo is a text tattoo, that simply says Jesus in black ink. No word on why Katy decided to get this tattoo. But there you have it she does have one. There have also been some rumors that she has a lip tattoo on her back somewhere. However, Katy does not rule out the possibility of getting another tattoo. It seems that the hot and cold singer, has been hot and cold about getting a tattoo of Freddie Mercury on her back. Katy has once stated that she looks up the former front-man of Queen and completely idolizes him. She shared that she once almost got a huge tattoo of Freddie’s face on her back, but says she decided against at the last minute. She says she is glad she didn’t do it but on the flip side she still has an urge to get this tattoo on her back. So it is pretty safe to say that this pin up style singer will more than likely add to her tattoo collection one day.

New Tattoo Ink Makes Removal Easier

There has been some controversy over this new tattoo ink that has come out. The new tattoo ink has been out since the fall of 2007 but some people are claiming that the ink doesn’t do what everyone claims it does. This new ink is  permanent as well as removable. It is made by storing dye in microscopic capsules that will stay in the skin for good. But if you wake up one day and decide you no longer want your tattoo or regret it one day, it can simply be zapped away with a single laser treatment that is simpler and less painful than the barrage of treatments now needed.
People are now coming forward who have gotten a tattoo with this new “removable” ink and  are saying the removal process isn’t as easy as the makers of this new ink are saying. For instance they state you will only have to under go one laser tattoo removal session. Well real life people are auguring that it takes six sessions just like it would with the old traditional  ink.
The bottom line is people are missing the whole point about getting a tattoo. A tattoo is meant to be permanent and be with you the rest of your life. If you feel you won’t be able to live with a tattoo for the rest of your life, simply don’t get one. Don’t rely on a new ink method to save you. The cost of laser tattoo removal is far more expensive than getting a tattoo and it is pretty much guaranteed even with this new tattoo ink that you will have to under go multiple sessions to get rid of your tattoo. Not only does this new ink cost considerably more than your traditional tattoo ink, but if you decide you don’t want this tattoo anymore you will have to shell out even more money to get it removed. Simply put think before you ink. A tattoo is a life committment if you feel you can’t make it than you are not cut out to have a tattoo.

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