January 1, 2004
11am New Year's Day! While the rest of the world is out cold- recovering from the drun ken stupor that seems to engulf mankind on that one particular night of the year- I'm at the tattoo studio getting ready to work. It's kind of funny that the one thing that can unite the people of the world is an annual drunk! In any case, it's 11am and I'm setting up for Tommy's second outline sitting. If I get a chance I'm going to work on Kali's headdress…
3pm 4 hours of tattooing! I did the flame outline in red. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to color the flames, but I thought a red outline might be interesting. I think it makes Tommy a little crazy that I don't have all the colors figured out and that I refuse to be pinned down to any particular color scheme. I seem to do better tattoos when I ad-lib the color. Even if I try to plan all the colors out, I end up changing my mind while I'm working. I think it's because you can never completely envision what a tattoo is going to look like on a person until you see it; and while one color may look good on paper, when it comes to a person's skin, some other color may look better- especially as the tattoo unfolds in front of me. Anyway, I know it drives Tommy a little nuts but I kind of enjoy torturing him.
I didn't manage to get Kali's headdress done because working on Tommy's ribs really wiped him out. I can't blame him- I hated having my ribs tattooed! At least we're done outlining for a while so he can have a break from my Roll-O-Matic outliner. Mike Malone (a.k.a. Rollo Banks - Sailor Jerry's apprentice) made it for me a few years back and I love it; but because it's so fast, it's not very 'forgiving' and it tends to 'sting' a little. I doubt Tommy's going to miss it.
January 8, 2004
10pm Session number three is over. I was as unprepared as always for Tommy's appointment today. I had promised to have the scales for the snake finished, and the rest of the snake's body drawn, but I'm a flake. Ah well, I'll do it next week. That was my attitude when Tommy got here and I think I'm going to stick with it. I decided to start with the crown. It took about an hour and a half but it was worth it! I took the time to put little white gleams on almost every little jewel on her head. I'm pretty happy with how it looks. I'm going to be curious to see how he heals up.
We colored the Lord Yama blue with heavy black shading; he has green hair, pink palms and an ornate headdress. All I have left on him is the sash that swirls around him. We got started coloring the Lord Yamantaka purple with heavy black shading and red hair. We didn't, quite, get finished with Lord Yamantaka; but we did finish both of the lotus pads he and Lord Yama are standing on.
At least Tommy had a little easier time today- no severe lightheadedness. We decided to work every Thursday from here on out. If I post these diary entries on our site, I wonder if people will log on and follow the evolution of this tattoo.
January 15, 2004
9:30 pm As soon as Tommy arrived at Body Adorned, today, I asked him to show me his back. I was shocked! The coloring we did last week on Lord Yama and Lord Yamantaka healed up perfectly! It seems like I can do no wrong with this guy's skin- I've been using 5 and 7 needle magnums and neither seems to tear him up no matter how much I work the skin when I'm blending or shading colors. I love this guy's skin! Not only is it bright, but it's almost finished peeling already- and it's only been 7 days. I know my aftercare instructions are good but this is more than I could have hoped for.
At least Tommy didn't mention getting lightheaded at all today. It seems that he's finally gotten over whatever was causing his psychosis. Personally, I think he's been nervous about getting such a big tattoo. He's been insisting that he's NOT nervous, but I think that some part of his subconscious has been having trouble with the whole idea of this tattoo. I can't think of any other reason for him getting so lightheaded all the time; even though Tommy has offered any number of alternate (but fairly implausible) theories. I'm just going to count my blessings, and keep my digits crossed, that it's not an issue any more. Now…..if I can just get him to stop focusing on, and talking about, the pain!
Today we finished up Lord Yama and Lord Yamantaka and moved onto Kali. We colored Kali's face and upper torso. I had a chance, earlier this week, to practice for today- I did a Tibetan deity tattoo where I tried the blue I had blended for Kali's face. I used this tattoo to see how packing the face full of this particular blue would work and how it would look. I really liked how the experiment turned out. So, when I started in on Kali's face and upper torso it went quickly and easily- for me, at least, it did.
Tommy spent a big part of the session talking about the discomfort of getting tattooed; by me, and today, in particular. No matter how hard I tried to steer the conversation into a more pleasant direction, he seemed to return to the topic of pain and his theories about the discomfort of getting tattooed. I don't think I've ever met someone who has spent so much time thinking about the causes, effects and ways to avoid pain. I wonder if you can read the smile on my face as I'm writing this.
It was a good appointment- we made a lot of progress. Now that the upper torso is finished, and I've laid out the way Kai's jewelry looks, I think we'll be able to finish him up next week. It won't bother me a bit to move on to the next part of the tattoo.
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