at five years of tattooing
I was:
in a different crappy relationship
loud
artsy
working too many hours
goofy
going to conventions
crying a lot
drawing with prismacolor markers
painting a lot
taking fewer pictures
getting interviewed for a magazine
collaborative
tiger tattoo
I really, really enjoy doing collaborative work. I like the cameraderie, I like seeing how other people do stuff, I like having someone to ask about color choices, I like the way it makes everything go faster, and I like sharing the load. It’s fun to draw with someone else, see what comes out of their mind, it’s awesome.
that said, I hate it when their wiping disturbs my stretching. and vice versa. If only skin could wipe itself without moving, collaborative work would be the easiest thing ever.
resonance
I’ve had a few people ask me why I use “resonanteye” as a name. I’ve been using it since before the internet, as a pen name at first and then with the advent of email, as my address and username.
full explanation and some interesting stuff after the jump
Blacklight inks
several points to be remembered about blacklight inks:
- 1NO INK OR PIGMENT HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE FDA FOR TATTOOING HUMAN BEINGS. NONE. ZERO. ZILCH. there is a brand of ink that was approved for marking animals meant for human consumption. This is totally different (and was exploited by said company in a mildly dishonest way in their advertising.)
about promoting yourself
Promotion comes easily to a lot of tattooers. When I first started tattooing, I was shy, a hermit. I disliked talking to people and pretty much felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I did not, and do not now, have great social skills and an outgoing personality. I also have always been a geek, nerd, dork. A skank. A weirdo. Not popular.
Promotion requires friendliness. You have to like people, to convince them that there is good reason for them to come to you for their visual needs. Yes, skill and talent and innate genius go a long way, but not all the way. You have to learn to shake hands and smile. To play nice.
I discovered, after tattooing for a few years, that I genuinely liked the people I was working on. Tattoo clientele vary regionally of course, but I found that even the “worst” client base were people that I naturally thought were pretty cool. They wanted to get a tattoo. Often they were witty, or silly, or just interesting. I decided I liked these people.
on drawing flash
I am assuming you are a tattoo artist in writing this. If you’re not, it’s not going to help you much anyway.
Most tattooers draw some flash, at least once, somewhere along the line. It’s common to start trying to draw flash when you realize that you’ve accumulated a big pile of sketches that you haven’t tattooed yet, thinking, “I could make a flash set, or a sketchbook, out of all this stuff.”
This is a trap.
life drawing resources
If you have never taken a life or gesture drawing class, you really should. It will take you much further than any anatomy book can. here are some resources to get back into the swing of figure drawing (more…)
flash pile. ugh.
Yesterday we went through all the flash and got rid of a bunch, and put up some new stuff, and weeded out all the horrible things…old things…things that we not only never use for referrence, but never want to-
John loggerdogger bruki nicky me and travis; all of us….all freakin day. here we are hard at work
today I have the day off. I am painting- here’s in progress and done picture that I did first thing. Now it’s back to the drawing board, I have one or two other projects I wanna try to get finished today.
Oh and I almost forgot, I also started working on this big rework coverup thingies on feral night before last. we did some other stuff to the front of it before, so now I’ve started on the back.
