I've always considered a tattoo to be less about the object and more about the event of which it reminds you. It's a snapshot into a time in your life or a reminder of something you don't want to forget. Some get a tattoo just because they think it looks cool; I guess my first would fall into that category. Regardless of my original reasoning, though, it will always take me back to that time in my life, much more often than a photograph ever will. The third and last call for a tattoo, in my opinion, is to simply express an ideal or concept, the thing that tickles your unmentionables. What drives you or pulls you or makes you smile or makes you smirk? What gods do you drop a knee to? For me, the answer to all of these is the same: Bacchus, the God of Wine and Revelry.
Now I know that some of you more pious individuals just had the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and a few may be questioning the further reading of this blog or maybe even the further pursuit of our friendship all together. Before you make any rash decisions, though, know that I don't actually worship Bacchus (or Dionysus to the Greeks). The image just embodies everything that I hold to be important: living for the moment, never passing an opportunity. Everyone knows 'carpe diem' but, thanks to Robin Williams and the dead poets, everyone also mistranslates it and takes it out of context. "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero" is the full line of poetry written by Horace in 23 b.c. and it actually translates to "Pluck the day, putting as little trust as possible in the future." Sit back and drink your wine.
Getting a tattoo in South Korea is not exactly legal. It's kind of like driving 57 in a 55, though; it's not really enforced to any great extent. In addition to the legal issue, tattoos are still associated with the Yakuza in this part of the world. Some places still won't allow an Asian with a tattoo into a public bathhouse. Obviously I'm white and that keeps me out of any Japanese crime syndicates, so I haven't had any problems with my tattoo. Despite the police turning a blind eye, most tattoo shops cannot operate as a regular storefront property. They are done in the back rooms of dummy shops and in extra rooms at the artists home. It also means the only way to really find an artist is by word of mouth. I met the artist I've been going to through a guy I met on my sailing trip a few weeks ago. The artist underwent 15 years of training in Japan in a classic Irezumi style. He's known very well for his full body suit style tattoos and he implements both hand tapped and gun tattoos depending on your request. The image that I was wanting for my left shoulder was a bit out of his wheelhouse, but I could tell by the work that I had seen from him that the difficulty would not be an issue.
That tattoo itself is going to take at least four sessions and I've decided to chronicle it with pictures from each session. The price itself is about a third of what I was expecting to pay. After the initial consultation, I decided to go forward with the tattoo and we set up an appointment for a few days later. It was the tail end of a pay period for me and he did the first session with no money down at all, a concept that would be completely unheard of back in the states. This first session took about an hour and a half, by the way. The man works fast.
__________________________________________________________________________
After a week, of healing, I went back for my second session. The detail of the piece is a lot more established after this session. I basically had two and baby cluster filled in this time. Each individual grape has four or five different shades in it and it has become apparent that the tattoo is going to take a lot longer than myself or the artist originally thought it would take. He thinks it's going to be four or five more sessions from this point, putting the total sessions possibly at seven. I spent an hour and a half under the gun again this time and it was a helluva lot more painful. Here are the pics:
__________________________________________________________________________
Here are pics from the third session. This was a much longer session and the artist really hit his stride. This is the first time that he has done this style of tattoo, so the grapes from the last session were a kind of "figuring things out" sort of situation. They went much, much quicker this time around.
__________________________________________________________________________
Last night, we got started in on the leaves and the collarbone area was by far the hardest for me. From what the artist said, each person is a little different in what are bothers them the most. For me, the thin spot right on my collar bone has been a bitch. I think he's pretty much done up there now, but I really don't know. He started off with a general outline (blueprint) and he lets the art tell him where to go next. We were out one night and a mutual friend asked him how he planned to do the face and he refused to even look at it, saying he didn't want to have a preconceived idea before he actually sat down to do it. It sounds a little unnerving to allow someone to use your body as a blank canvas, but the more I see his work, the more I'm happy with the decision to go to him for this piece. For instance, I know that the yellow is going to fade some over time, but I really like how it pops off of my shoulder right now. It frames the leaves themselves and gives it a deeper dimension; the same with the grape shading. It's a bit difficult to see the amount of detail that he's put into this tattoo from the pictures, but it's extensive. 
At this point, I've been on the table for just under ten hours and he says I have at least 2 or 3 sessions left. He hasn't even started on the facial details and only one set of leaves have been completed. The most obvious downside to getting this has been how small, pathetic, and old the tattoo looks that is on my right shoulder. I have no intentions of ever covering it up, but it could use a touch-up and maybe an extension to help it to match the art on my left shoulder. I still have a few weeks to go on this one, though. One tat at a time.__________________________________________________________________________
This next session was another lightning round. Much like when he did the first set of grapes, the first leaves were more of trying to figure out how to approach the colors. Once he figured it out, he flew through the next group of leaves. It looks as if I only have one session left to go, but I don't really know what he has planned for sure, so I may be wrong. I was pleasantly surprised when the first set of leaves didn't lose their pop after the scab came off... they look as bright today as when I first got it done. The only thing left at this stage is the face itself and possibly some shadowing...
__________________________________________________________________________
It's finished....
The final three sessions were finished over the course of 6 or 7 days. The details of the face were all done free hand and the detail of the beard and the eyebrows was particularly impressive to me. He did it all with a single needle in a continuous line like a brush stroke on a canvas.... ridiculous.
 | |
| The face |
 |
| Bearded detail |
So the entire process took almost 4 months. It was awesome to have a tattoo artist who was willing to take the time to make this piece as intricate and badass as this one turned out to be. The quick outline that he did in the first session is literally the only time that he used any guiding stencil at all on my arm... practically the whole thing was done free hand.
The only real question is.... "what's next?"
No comments:
Post a Comment