Red Region Inferno

So this chick comes in and she is a big fan of the group TOOL and also (as many TOOL fans are) a fan of Alex Grey’s artwork.
She want’s these eyes tattooed on her.
I do it.

While tattooing her she says she say on the artists site that he doesn’t allow tattoos of his work or some such thing.
I say it is personal expression, fuck that.
I went to his site alexgrey.com and clicked his use of images link.
Holy crud… he does go on about tattoos (and everything else under the sun)
TATTOOS:
For no fee, you may have a tattoo made from Alex’s art under the following conditions:
1) Employ the best possible artist who is capable of rendering the best reproduction of the work and thereby giving the most beautiful results.
2) Send a good quality photo of the finished tattoo with your name to info@alexgrey.com. (work in progress photo also requested but optional).
3) Grant free use of the photo of your tattoo for any subsequent publication approved by Alex Grey.
I create art. I do it for my lively hood. I may not be as famous as Alex Grey and therefore not as ripped off as him, but my stuff does get jacked pretty often. Just yesterday I found a site selling crap prints of five of my paintings without permission and with nothing going to me. The battle must ensue, I am constantly dealing with stupid stuff like that.
I have even received advertisements in the mail trying to sell me my own poorly copied tattoo flash designs for MY shop. (That has happened multiple times) People are thieves.
Alex Grey has been ripped off tons, I’ve seen it, and he is obviously paranoid about it because he has a HUGE page yakking about copyrights, use, credits, etc…
Still, he does get that without fans and grassroots promotion an artist is nothing.
He does allow some use.

For example:
LIMITED USE ON A WEBSITE:
You are permitted to use ONE image on your personal (non-commercial) web site with the following stipulations.
1. A link to AlexGrey.com must be visible WITH the image.
2) The image used must be no larger than 400 pixels/ 3 inches in either dimension.

2) Images MAY NOT be used on the homepage.

3) Images MAY NOT be used as backgrounds, cropped, or otherwise presented in a manner which obscures the entire image in any way.

4) Images may not be used on web sites deemed inappropriate.

5) Images may not be modified, colored, animated, adapted, collaged, used as a graphic design element, or altered in any way.

To use an image as an Avatar:

1) Images must not exceed 200 pixels in any dimension

2) Images used must have the Alex Grey web site address plainly visible (alexgrey.com). If the requested and approved image is not already available with the URL text as described, we will create one for use under the terms of agreement.

3) Images may not be modified, colored, animated, or used as an element in a graphic design under any circumstances unless through separate written license between Alex Grey and the specific web site.

I find all this funny because it is all so hard (impossible) to enforce.
I know this for a fact because besides my art I have dealt in an industry that is filled with thieves more than almost any other. PORN
Yes, I took tons of pictures of thousands of girls over the years.
I hold copyright and posses the model releases along with the age verification.
These images have been sold to other companies/websites for limited use. Very strict contracts are used and there is also the fear of the powers that be coming down on thieves asking either for model release proof or age verification. One could cause huge monetary problems and the other prison time even, but still… people steal the images and post them all over the place. They even use them for print materials which is ten times as dumb because you can’t just delete and say sorry when a cease and desist is all that has been asked of you.
*sigh* It is all a bunch of crap… but, wtf on a huge page like that saying what you can and can’t do?
I think it will only discourage the more honest people anyways who would have given credit.
The douche bags who steal for profit will still be ripping off the creator of visual media and getting away with it.
Then again… maybe he is right. Maybe that is how it has to be.
Maybe all of us will soon be listing our rules.
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse in court.
Maybe it is the artists responsibility to have a page such as Alex Grey has.
again… *sigh*
Things used to be so much more simple.

If somehow you read this far you may be interested in reading up on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

I also recommend for those of you who are not familiar with Alex Grey’s work to visit his site as it is some pretty amazing stuff he does.
If you do know his work, but have never visited his site I recommend you do so and hit his “early works” and check out his self portraits through the years. Super cool.

It has been said that seeing an elephant in one’s dreams can signify the emergence of one’s Highest True Self.

In India the elephant is a very symbolic critter.
It is not just a symbol of finding your truth.
It is also the God of Warriors and a totem of the greatest of warriors, denoting royalty, inner strength and nobility.

As a Christian symbol the male and female elephant together may often represent Adam and Eve.
That is of course only for some Christians as Christianity is such a generic term nowadays you can rarely find any consensus on anything.

Strength, fidelity, memory, patience, wisdom, intelligence, and power can all be represented through the symbolic nature of the mighty elephant.

Here we have a tattoo of an elephant saddled and ready above a banner that says “TRUTH.”
It came from a book. The client brought it in and wanted it super tiny.
I enjoy doing miniature tattoos.
This is the heeled and aged version of the tattoo at about a year and a half after I did it.
One of the things i enjoy about doing these little things is figuring out how much can be done that will give enough detail to make the tattoo sweet, but not going over the line so that it turns to a blur years down the road.
I hate seeing tattoos like that.

Says The Skull…”To get to the Red Bull’s chamber, you have to walk through time. A clock isn’t time; it’s just numbers and springs. Pay it no mind.”

“I am afraid of this mortal body… more afraid than I was of the Red Bull.” says the unicorn who has become a woman.

She became a woman under the spell of a magician. Someone changed her from what she was in order to protect her.
Did she need protection? Only as a Unicorn was she able to push forward and drive the bull into the sea.
Yet her time being not herself… faking it… enabled her to see and feel in other ways. It was the love that she felt for Prince Lir propelled her forward and helped in fighting the bull.

Along with being something else she experienced new feelings and fears. She also slowly forgot herself.
To return to being what she really was was a fearful thing filled with a new understanding and also loss, but it made her more than what she once was.

Sometimes the masks we must put on teach us things that make us stronger as our true selves.

All from the fear of a Big Red Bull and a feeling of loneliness.

What oh what did the Red Bull really signify?

In general I usually always prefer a book over a movie, but in the case of The Last Unicorn it is the opposite.
The book is fine and all, but the movie is a bit more mystical and put together better.

Link to – The Last Unicorn (book)

The movie:

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.”
So says Schmendrick the Magician.

A Koi is a nishikigoi is a carp.
Simply a domesticated fancy carp.
Originally the domestication was for food. It is now primarily for fancy ponds.

The tattoo above is of a koi above a hip. The gal who got it is a bit of a hippie and the combination of her being a bit of a hippie and it being tattooed above the hip gave me the fabulously fun title of this post.

The pretty koi is so symbolic that it is a mainstay in tattooing. Back when it was bred primarily for food it was noticed that a koi would often bravely climb waterfalls. Most Koi when caught would lay upon the cutting board awaiting the knife without moving a bit or showing any discomfort or fear. Such an act is comparable to the ideal of a samurai warrior facing a sword.

The legend most tattoo fanciers are inspired by is one in which the koi struggles mightily against a huge waterfall cascading from the top of a mountain and no matter what never gives up.
It may fall, but returns to try again.
Eventually the koi triumphant crests the waterfall and is rewarded by being turned into a dragon.
Some say at this point the dragon starts a similar quest flying ever higher towards the heavens and an even greater mountain peak to gain the pearl of wisdom.

Yada yada yada…
The more specific Japanese legend is if a koi succeeded in climbing the falls at a certain point called the Dragon’s Gate on the Yellow River it would be turned into a dragon. Based on that legend, it became a symbol of worldly aspiration and advancement.

The carp as a tattoo represents a koi represents determination, strength, good fortune, prosperity and riches.

With all that said and thousands of koi tattoos done over the years, plus working along side many other tattooists at studios and conventions over the years who have also done their fare share, I can say that most people who get this fish do it simply because they like the looks of the thing or because they lack any sort of imagination at all and get it because it is a common tattoo theme.

Personally I have no problem with those reasons.
Koi make for great tattoos and can be done in almost any art style you can imagine.
They are pretty and can be drawn easily to fit any body part well.
I enjoy tattooing fish of all sort and koi are among my favorites.

The tattoo shown here was nice to me because of the simplicity. I lined it in a fashion that I would normally use when going for bold colors, but instead we went with subtle shading.
Though hard to see because the images are small I also added just the smallest hint of very light color to the water.

The Modern Prometheus aka Frankenstein is a story that gripped readers to the point of changing how we think of life and death.
Originally published anonymously, Mary Shelley’s book about a scientist who created life and was horrified by his creation is now one of the great horror classics.
The premise has been used in many other works of fiction, plays, poetry, paintings, sculptures, and of course movies.

I am often asked to tattoo stitches. Usually the client wants a simple line with a bunch of little lines across it thinking it will look cool. Usually that is after they find out that real looking stitches will actually cost them more than a a night at the bar.
I turn these people away. I think such tattoos look foolish. No offense to anyone out their who has them, but if you want a tattoo that looks like a 5 year old drew it… have a 5 year old draw it so you can at least use that as an excuse as to why you have such a piss poor job.

The tattoo shown above was done on somebody who didn’t want a stupid line with zigzag lines back and forth. He wanted the real looking stuff with a little extra pizzazz.
It wraps all the way around as if his arm had been sewn back on. Frankenstein like I think.
Oddly enough it was tattooing all the skin around the stitching that took the time.
The stitches went fast, but getting the surrounding stuff to permanently look wilted and sore was what makes it look so awesome.
A lot of flesh tones, peachy colors, creams and whites… blended out close to a half inch on either side. Makes for a good conversation starter for the guy.

Bio-Mech tattoos got super popular back in the mid 90′s.
A lot of it had to do with people really being into H.R. Giger.
If you don’t know who that is you can google him. He is an artist/illustrator who is mostly known for his work on designing the aliens and landscapes from the Alien movies.
The 90′s fad of Bio-Mech started to die out about ten-ish years ago and took a huge dump in popularity by 2005.
Personally I think it is because so many poser douche-bag type people started getting the style tattooed on them to “be cool,” but I can’t know for sure.
Anyways… the Bio-Mech tattoo fell from the roister of cool and trendy tattoo themes that everybody who was a hip bad-ass just had to have inked.
Fast forward to nowadays… People still get the style.
Since it isn’t way-cool trendy tattoo style of the moment the clients seeking the work are actually people who like the style and are drawn to it.

The tattoo above is of a Bio-Mech style with torn skin and a broken bone.
This particular tattoo is very stylized and exaggerated in ways.
The client had broken his arm and shoulder severely and spent a long time with rehabilitation after numerous surgeries.
I wont go into the details of the design, but it will suffice to say that every little bit of it represents part of what he went through and how he feels about it all.
Oh, and sorry for the flash glare, I usually only snap one or two pictures of a tattoo if I think to take a picture at all, and this time I got two pictures with flash glare. This one was flash burned the least.

So… Bio-Mech, short for “Bio-mechanical” obviously.
A style that is an homage to androids. A style portraying robotics, engineering, and living flesh combined.
Think of living tissue meshed with machinery, tubes, wires, gears, circuitry, etc..
There is no real rules to this style. Some want very intricate black-work that you can only make out up close while others prefer bold colors that allow the viewer to see what is going on from a distance.
Some want realism while others go for pure fantasy. I have even done some that mesh other creatures with robotics and human flesh.
It can be a fun style.

I just love this tattoo.

When the gal asked me to tattoo it for her I was very excited.
It speaks words I often wish to say with it’s simple imagery.

War Turtle

What a weekend I had!

After an amazingly fun all night-er in Seattle I had to high tail it back home (missed the f#%$ing ferries) for a grueling 3 hour trip with ZERO sleep to make it to a morning tattoo appointment.

The funniest part of that is the client was from Seattle (well-actually she was from Edmonds) so we were most likely on the road at the same time heading in the same direction.

Anyways… I made it on time, but didn’t have my art ready so she had to wait around while I drew up a stencil from the photo she had given me.

It was a picture of her grandfather’s guitar.
A “Fender Jaguar” Guitar to be exact.
Now I don’t know guitars, so I pretty much treat such things like I would a portrait tattoo.
I just look at the thing and copy it on the skin after making a rough stencil of the shape.
No ‘artistic license’ can be taken when tattooing something like this.

I felt like a zombie.
I hadn’t slept at all the night before and only a few hours the night before that.
I had to look in the mirror a few times to make sure my head wasn’t swollen up like a big balloon (because it felt like it was.
No worries…. I have been tattooing so long that I can pull of some sweet work with one drunken eye shut and strobe lights flashing while riding a roller coaster.

I did however forget that something was supposed to be written in the tattoo so I had to just write it out with a bic pen and draw the banner on.
She wanted it to have that “hand-written” cursive script look.
Made the poor girl spell it out half a dozen times and then quadruple check it before I tattooed it permanently.

I never trust my own spelling anyway, but when I am zombie-fied I really don’t trust myself.
Always double check spelling and do it another couple times if brain fry is involved.
That my friends is a great rule for a tattooist to have.

I wasn’t 100% on the idea of the banner being black work while the guitar was done in color realism, but such things are not always up to me, and in the end it looked o.k. and served the purpose of having it stand out in tribute to her grandfather.

So… the finished Fender Jaguar Guitar Tattoo.  Artfully inked by a zombie.

The client was happy (she loved it) and I was happy.
My tattoo done, I headed home for some long awaited sleep.
I only ended up getting a couple hours because my wife also needed some sleep and our 2 year old thought it was a fabulous day to have an extra special amount of energy and skip her nap, but those 2 hours made all the difference. From Zombie to normal tired person in just 2 hours. What a great invention is the pillow.

Queen rocks!
Yep, that is a statement.. not a question.
When I was a kid I loved Queen. When I was a teen I loved Queen.
Today while tattooing I was rocking out to Queen.

Am I alone in being a huge lifelong Queen fan?
I think that a record of eighteen number one albums and over 300 million albums sold answers that question.

Check out this awesome tattoo of the Queen crest done on a life long fan.

The client who got this tattoo is obviously as big a Queen fan as they come.
For those who don’t know the image..
It is a stylized Queen logo.
The logo (or crest) for Queen consists of the zodiac signs of all four members of the band. The lions (Leo times two) hold a big Q in the center. A crab (cancer) sits above the Q, and a couple fairies (for Virgo) sit next to the Q. I honestly have no clue why the crown is included or the phoenix…. but I am sure a reason exists.
-  If any of you all have any ideas feel free to share them.

Freddie Mercury designed and drew the first few images of the logo/crest himself.

I remember being devastated when Freddie died… but the music lived on.

Now go put a Queen CD on and let them Rock you!

Times have been tough lately in America.

Or maybe I should say “In the USA things have been a bit down.”

Yep, people are out of work, cost of living goes up while wages go down… umm, we are having a failure situation here I think folks.

I know as an artist it is tough.
It is the worst I have had it for the 25 years of my career, and I am one of the lucky established ones.
I really feel sorry for the new guys and gals out in the art world.

People don’t buy art when they are broke.
It is a luxury purchase.
You can do without that great painting you want so bad, but you can’t do without gasoline and food.
So we artists…. we suffer first.
My prints stopped selling in early 2009.
Did they become un-popular all of a sudden?
Don’t think so. People just can’t afford something they don’t have to have.

So my country.
The country with the most external debt in the world. (yep, that is a fact)
Will people lose all love of you my country?
Will we be the poorest of nations?
Will we recover?

Honestly, I have no idea how soon or to what extent we in the USA will recover.
I do know it will get a lot worse for many before it gets better, but eventually I think we will recover.

Will our self rightous pride dwindle to nothing before then?
I doubt it. We have been taught well how wonderful it is to live in the USA.
We have been taught well how we are the best.
The propaganda machine has done it’s job.

So…. we will always love our country and consider it the biggest, best, richest country on earth.
No matter what the facts say.

The tattoo you are looking at is one of my strange negative space color bomb creations.
(formerly know as reverse Image Color Bombs)
It is a small one… just under 4 inches wide, so you are looking at it pretty close to life size probably.
It was done on a gals bottom…..
and no puns were intended.
She is a lover of her country.
Proud to be of the USA.

No big story involved, she told me she wanted the USA and to do one of my abstract/negative space things. Make it cool, keep it small, and this is where I want it.

This is what I came up with.
Kinda nifty – If I do say so myself.
Well…. In that American, made in the USA sort of way.

On a serious note:
If you are live in the USA do yourself a favor.
Buy American made and manufactured products as much as you can until we do get out of our economic slump.
Not much can be done at the moment about how poorly our federal government has used our moneys, but we as a people can at least attempt to help ourselves by keeping some of the money here in the USA.
I am not saying buy lower quality products for higher prices just because they are American products, but if you have a choice between like products… by from your own country. It can do nothing except help.