kylegrey

Was lucky enough to get some work from Chris Conn last night. 1st session, halo and color next time.
Ill try to post a better pic later. By the way.... one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

My buddy jaie came to town so i had him stick this dagger on my shin.

Little Uncle Alan reaper head on the side of my knee.
Really cool shop to get tattooed at- probably the most unique / nicely finished I've seen.

Some of yesterday's work, on the top parrot and bamboo from original Ed Hardy acetate. Juan Arreguin, my artist, got it from Nervio who worked in San Francisco for a long time.
The next two were taken from Percy Water's book, done by Kemer Rodriguez.
Done at Superfly Tattoo in Leon, Mexico.

I finally get to give this a shot!
Dana Helmuth, 95% completed at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore, the rest done in his private studio.

Throwing the hat in. Newbie getting his second tattoo, 4 months after his first.
I got this skull and dagger from Luke Wessman in NYC @ Wooster Street Social.

I met a girl, we talked tattoos, she's from az, shows me her legs done by roper, says they're friends and she can text him and give me a referral. Looks like I'm saving some money and flying to Arizona sometime this year. !!!!
Also naturally me and this girl have been seeing each other.
Life is cool sometimes.

Finally scored a copy of Ozuma Kaname's long out of print "Women in Tattoo" book. I've been drooling over it ever since I saw it in Kurt Wiscombe's shop 6 years ago! Can't wait for it to come in!

Yes, I did......I got the tattoo below from David Bruehl......and I got another piece to my snake (no photo of it) by Mike Fite!
Mike Fite and I have an agreement....
He started a skin tear snake head on me about a year and a half ago sooooo......every time we see each other....he adds
another piece of the snake on my body somewhere as a filler piece....LMAO! :D

Well.....I went to Virginia Beach the Thursday night before the Richmond Tattoo show and woke up Friday morning to go to Ancient Art Tattoo (VaBch) to be tattooed by Scott Sterling!
What was going to be a small banger to palm size tattoo.....turned into this........
Due to a lot of weight loss....I do have a roll on my side.....Scott used the fact that I have this and made it so the mouth opens and closes.....LMAO!
Very fresh photos....sorry the photos isn't better!

I love that little scorpion, @hogg and @cltattooing ! Chill dude.
I feel like you have all already seen this on the 'ole Instagram, but I had the great pleasure of getting a couple of peonies from Brian Kaneko this weekend. It was a great experience to get zapped by such a nice, funny and talented person, and it was also our first time at Adorned, which was also very fun! What a lovely space. Can't wait to go back there, and will definitely be getting more work from Brian!
You can peep the tattoos on his IG here: @truenaturetattoo
I am of course in love with the peonies, which I've been wanting forever! It's such a treat to look down and see them there. They are healing like a dream so far. I have to say, I love this finally tattooing my arms business - soooo much more pleasant than all that back/thighs crap I started with.

I got my first-ever hand-poked tattoo last night from our own @cltattooing:

It's also my first scorpion. Let's be honest: I needed one.

The X man cometh go follow duncanxtattoos on instagram .

Jun Cha. Unfinished, ran out of time and had to run to the airport. 16 hour session.

Reh, edited with better size & lost the likes.

Nice one!
New YOB is pretty great too:


Been getting tattooed to a lot of BONGRIPPER lately. Dig it.

Tim Lehi oneshot

The X man cometh go follow duncanxtattoos on instagram .

The X man cometh go follow duncanxtattoos on instagram .

The X man cometh go follow duncanxtattoos on instagram .

The X man cometh go follow duncanxtattoos on instagram .

As promised I have now managed to get some pictures of my fully outlined back. I never imagined it would be so many lines when I started but after 5 sessions and 15 hours in total we have completed the first stage. Very happy with it and can't find enough mirrors to look at all the detail.

@Lance I have bonji from Horimitsu of the 8 Buddhist bosatsu at the end of my 3/4 sleeves. For my right arm, I chose to highlight my birth year character in red ink (Fugen) while the remaining characters are in black. Fugen is also associated with my birth year zodiac sign, the year of the dragon which I also have on my right arm so that goes very well together.
On my left arm, I went with the same bosatsu but chose to highlight the Fudo character in red as he is the immovable one and I always love the look of the written bonji character.

My own personal research indicates that with multiple characters, it normally variations of the 8 bosatsu or just a few of the characters.

There are also mantra's that you mentioned. One I really like is the mantra of light from the Shingon school of Buddhism in Japan. Try this link for a little bit of research: The Mantra of Light
Also, do you have a specific artist in mind? A lot of the Japanese artists that I've encountered are very well versed in Buddhist imagery and might be able to make some recommendations. Some non-Japanese artists like Jondix, Yoni Zilber, etc who have studied the Buddhist religion may also be good choices. (Both Jondix and Kiku did separate bonji characters around Troy Denning's neck)

Got this from Greg whitehead in Portland.
Instagram

Just managed to sit through my first tattoo, finally, yay! Done by Anthony Cole at Silver Needles in Southend. Very happy with my choice. Thanks so much to everyone on this forum for helping to create such a great resource, I learnt a lot here.