Ben87

I hate you!

By Shige.

By Shige.

By Shige.

By Shige.

I love this question on the application "Briefly describe your personality." I would just write the polar opposite of al fliction.

As far as tattooing goes, most Japanese, traditional style work is based on folk tales or religious/devotional stories or artwork.
So Japanese stuff is a mix of Buddhism and Shinto. Shinto being Japan's 'Old religion'.
Buddhism grew from a sect of Hinduism, in India. Many of the Buddhist tales involve long arduous journeys to spread the new religion to the people of the world, starting with Tibet, through China and it's surrounding countries, eventually to Japan. In India, Buddhism was mostly a small sect or cult but in China it took it's own flavour and was adapted to suit the climate, existing folk tales and myths. That version of Buddhism travelled to Japan and mixed with Shinto to evolve into it's own flavour of Japanese Buddhism. That's what we see in traditional Japanese tattoos. Many of the Japanese gods and mythical beasts have equivalent Chinese names, sometimes tattooers use the Chinese names.
There are very few people working in a strict Japanese traditional style. Most tattooers, especially outside of Japan tend to work in a more broad 'Asian' style (although they focus on the japanese style). Taking elements and stylistic touches from traditional devotional artwork from across Asia. As @Kev already mentioned most of the decorated skull tattoos are based on real decorated skulls from Tibet, like the example above. There are also smaller, more cartoon-looking skulls that could be mistaken for sugar skulls. They are often used as decoration around ritual instruments or artwork. You may have seen Filip use them as decoration on a larger skull's decorated cap.
Because other Asian countries don't have much history of decorative tattooing, it's not really possible to follow their example directly within tattooing. But the religious designs are awesome and people want large tattoos. That's why you find a mish-mash of broadly Asian influence wrapped in a mostly Japanese frame or background.
The interesting this is, the more you delve into the histories and myths of various distant and unconnected cultures, you notice many of the same elements. Swastikas, winged spirits and pyramids are good basic examples. (As a side note: it was cool to stand in a temple in Japan and notice Borneo style tribal patterns on the panel frames).
Jung called these 'Archetypes' (although this refers more to conceptual ideas and relationships, not graphic shapes) I call them 'fair game' for including in tattoos. It's my opinion that it's one of our jobs, as tattooers, to understand these elements to better apply them to tattoos and to guide the style and subject of our work more in line with historical or human tradition. Wether we admit our understanding or explain these archetypes to our clients is of no consequence.
This is one of the many reasons I'd rather tattoo a witch/crone holding a twig instead of a gent holding a pipe.
But that's another story. I don't want hippy clients asking me to channel their mystic history into their Celtic, Navaho, Saxon, Russian armband/finger tattoo. Nor do I want to stick an eye in a triangle on anything and everything.
I tried to shed light on this, but I think I just muddied the water more...

Al Fliction is an abhorrent man...

Ok I've uploaded some pictures, sorry for the terrible quality of them, they don't do the tattoos justice really but you get a rough idea at least.
Cheers,
Ben

Hey guys, long time lurker here, just joined and thought id say hi. Live near london, got both arms and my chest nearly finished, all my work done by Joao Bosco at The Family Business Tattoo apart from half my right arm which Shige is doing :), heading back to japan in march to get it finished which i can't wait for.
Cheers,
Ben

Hey guys, long time lurker here, just joined and thought id say hi. Live near london, got both arms and my chest nearly finished, all my work done by Joao Bosco at The Family Business Tattoo apart from half my right arm which Shige is doing :), heading back to japan in march to get it finished which i can't wait for.
Cheers,
Ben