INK Inc.

Tattoo designs have always been fun projects.

This one was for friend of old Lisa. She had a loose idea of wanting a wood-carved hippopotamus with her name in hieroglyphics somewhere. I had this Egyptian rubber stamp kit that I used as a reference for the pictogram. Later, a google search would contradict what the stamp set showed to be the letters L-I-S-A, but I never found out which was more correct. The background fill between the body was photoshopped. I have to get rid of the gold look. It aint hippo-bling. The rest is just colored pencil. Time-consuming medium but a very unique result.

This is the first computer-generated logo-ish image I ever created. The idea required perfect lines and angles. Started with doing the math of the angle of the axis, deciding how much twist I wanted to each side, making the outline symmetrical in Illustrator, and doing the shading in Photoshop. It was a good learner, as I was just starting out with those applications. I wanted to do something Escher-ish, as he's somebody I looked up to since I was little. And I liked the look of the Penrose triangle. But I wanted something I hadn't seen before, so I closed off the space in between and mulled on that for a bit. I got lucky and after a few sketches, this took an impossible yet sleek shape. I'm not often proud of my work, but I had to be if I was going to put it on my body. Got lucky. It often gets mistaken for the Japanese symbol for family, and most people think it's a fan. Yes, I am just a fan fan. I love fan.

Took the final print to Baby Ray at Spotlight Tattoo and tho hesitant to do some other dudes work without a personal touch, he did it. It has a bit of scarring and needs a makeover, but I'm overly-sketchy/anal about having other people permanently draw on me, and thus, it's been about 10 years now and no new ink. Yeah yeah, I know.

Big Lou was a friend I worked with from Los Angeles. A 6 foot 4 inch, 300+lbs Mexican, (a real teddy bear actually) he was shot in a drive-by at a party for him, the night he got out of being hospitalized, for being shot. He was getting out of the street scene, but still had an affinity for the art, as did/do I. He wanted a clown, and I knew right away the type he meant, fairly prevalent in Chicano art. I had seen a good one Mr. Cartoon had sprayed south of downtown. I didn't do it justice, but this was decent enough for ink. Never saw the finished product. Hope Baby Huey is staying out of trouble and doing well.

I want to design some more tattoos. Anyone?