tugboat's a greedy bitch

for tugboat's benefit, here is phase one of my "sleeve".

first a bit of background... i have 6 tattoos & throughout the years a subtle theme has progressed - all of the art on the right side of my body (stage right) is black work is tribal and/or east indian in origin. the ink my left side (stage left) is asian in design and quite colorful.

in the first picture (cell phone pic) you see the outline phase of the first bit of my sleeve. due to the level of detail in the symbol, this took just shy of 3 hours to complete:

the next pic is a perspective shot & was taken in a hotel room. normally i never drink coke or eat pringles (honestly, they are kinda disgusting), but at 2 in the morning, while on a show, beggers can't be choosers. i just love the forced perspective of this shot. the ink still isn't complete, but the colors have started to been added.

i had another amazing pic of the actual ink in process, but for the life of me, i can not find it. ugg. ms. bees knees can attest to the brilliance of the shot i'm missing.

and now the completed 'phase 1' tattoo. the symbol is the 8 auspicious symbols of buddhism (in their combined form). the whole thing took about 10 hours to complete (mainly due to the level of detail). i'm beyond thrilled with how it turned out.

phase two will continue the buddhist theme and will consist of a tara, tibetan prayer flags and some other asian symbolism.

i'll keep you posted. :-)