DevilMan

Well I received the grand price today :)

Unfortunatly I can't show the t-shirt together with the backpiece, but at least I got some sleeves that pair nicely with the t-shirt ;-)

(and yes, I'm sooo wearing this tomorrow to the office :) )

Awesome @DevilMan - you SCREAMED through that backpiece! I love the kitsune - and a lucky design to avoid all that needle time on one cheek

I found the cheeks not that bad, and wouldn't have minded if he was to fill it in... I even asked if he was going to fill in the blank part a bit (but he wouldn't) :)

Thanks Guys,

I'm honoured to have become one of the Tattoo of the Month winners :)

Even though there wasn't much competition this month (in number of people, not in quality ofcourse ;) ), it still feels awesome to have won :cool:

Specifically, at what point will visible tattoos make me appear less friendly/approachable than I really am, and do I want to project that kind of image?

Having tattoos doesn't make you less friendly or approachable, only a 'bad' attitude towards tattoos (of the other person (or perhaps even you ;-) ) does that...

Way to scare off the rest of the competition @DevilMan!

I hope so ;-)

Here is my submission for this months contest.

My whole backpiece has been done in a 6-month period (just 31 hours in total) by Bonel from Corazon Santo, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

I also have a full size picture available HERE

I'm around 176cm tall

My back is now officially done! :cool:

We had a little 1 hour session today, which was totally brutal unfortunatly, probably a lot of places weren't healed enough from the previous session (about a week and half ago ;-) ).

Some statistics : My backpiece was done in a 6 month period in a total of 31 hours :cool:

@MikeL I really like your backpiece! Really bold and strong, and very readable, great work!

Btw, I hope we don't enter the monthly contest in the same month, I would like to win once :)

As for my 'blank' fox, I'm really okay with it as is, it looks good as a whole... and my artist wants it to be this way... who am I to argue ;-)

I'm already thinking about the period after next weeks (last) session.... no more bi-weekly appointments, no more pain, no more healing... I'm sure going to miss these last six months :)

Today a little bit of everything has been done (in just 2 hours), red in the arrow, the glove, the shoe, the nails of the fox, even more red in the man's face etc.

Next time we have some small things to do (which we couldn't do today because it's in parts that were not fully healed from the previous session, and to tidy everything up.

I talked to my artist about the 'blank' part in the fox, and aked if he was planning on keeping it this way (as i think it looks a bit 'unfinished') but he gave me a firm 'yes' so I guess that's how it will stay :)

When I travel it's a whole other ball game though. Last time I went to the Netherlands to visit family I was a definite anomaly, when my husband and I went to Rio in 2009 were stuck out like sore thumbs, especially on the beach.

You felt like an anomaly in The Netherlands? Tattoo's are fairly normal here, and most people don't really care, and I hardly ever notice anybody staring at me... but maybe it's just me :)

There are some parts in the country which are highly religious, and tattoo's are not 'normal' there, but everywhere else it's really no problem.

Don't worry @Graeme, the ass isn't any worse than the rest of the back. I found parts of the ass even better to handle than most parts on my back :-)

Sorry typo :) I meant a Baku, a 'dream eater'.

Baku are classic chimera; the body of a bear, the nose of an elephant, the feet of a tiger, the tail of an ox, and the eyes of a rhinoceros. One legend says that when the gods were finished creating the animals, they took all of the odds and ends lying around and put them together to make the baku.

Have a look at Baku – The Dream Eater | for some more info

Obviously I'm also drawn more to the 'simple' design, a more 'new school' very detailed design can be very cool from close-by, but imho a japanese suite should have the 'wow' factor from across the room, not from 30cm away.

And what doesn't work with a samurai, a dragon and a ho-o?! You can put just about anything on your torso :) (but perhaps that part of the problem, soooo much to choose from :) )

For myself i'm still not sure about what to do with the torso, if i should continue with a munewari style front, with maybe something like a Kirin and a Baku on either side (perhaps going down onto my legs), or something like a yurei and a baku or something, or just do the whole front with one big piece

But are you going to get a '13', or are you going to go into full rebel mode and do a '15' :p

I just got back from another fun-filled session. 3 hours of stabbing on and around my spine....fun fun fun :)

This time a lot more black went in (coat and bow mostly), a bunch of purple in the coat and bow and some pink in the Kitsune's feet.

I have another 2 sessions planned (in 2 weeks, and the last one in 4 weeks), and the piece should be done then! :cool:

Well, torso need to be done, legs ... thus that gonna be a lot of pain... again... and a lot of money.... again ;-)

Gotta win the lottery first i guess :)

@misterJ yeah, it's all worth it for sure :-)

But nearing completion already has me thinking about the next project... dangerous thoughts ;-)

Well, my backpiece was started 4 months ago, and is already nearing completion. After day after a session I was looking forward to the next session, but everytime when that time came, and the needle hit my back somewhere I thought 'Why did I want a backpiece?!'

'Luckily' putting the lines in was pure hell for me, so everything else after that is like a breeze (well... it still hurts like hell on my back and ass ;-) )

I always shave the night before an appointment, in the shower, this way i have the least change of a rash or whatever and is the skin 'calm' after the shaving.

Tattooing alone is enough trauma to the skin, it doesn't need the red burning and itching feeling from a dry shave before we even start tattooing

(and i think it's a waist of time doing it in the tattoo shop (and i've got plenty of hair so it takes a while to shave ;-) )

Well, that concludes the contest for this month :D

It's been six weeks since the last session, but today we finally got to continue on my back. At first we just wanted to do the colouring of the Kitsune, but we even managed to put all the blue in the coat. All this was done 4 hours (of agony :) ).

@Chap I hope you get through it okay today :)

The good news is, after finishing the lining everything else (shading, coloring) will be a 'breeze' :)

Lining my back was 5 hours of pure hell, but i can get through the shading and coloring sessions without much troubles.... thankgod :)

Tattooing over my surgery scar was a bit more painfull, but not much... but my scar was something like 10 years old when it got tattooed over.

Healing was no different than the surrounding skin.