I'm piecing it all together now.

It's been a long strange trip for me and my arm. I started messing with it when I was nineteen and I got a small tribal squidish looking thing on my shoulder. That was all that would be on there for quite a long time. It was easily hidden by my shirts so I wouldn't have employers looking at me strange when applying for jobs. 

Barely any ink

Triloback

This picture just seems so bare now without anything showing on it. After I started thinking about what it was that I wanted to do with it, I continued on with my back which has been a work in progress for years as well. 

I kept thinking over and over about what it is I wanted to do for my sleeve and even then while thinking of that, I got my Chinese "Peace, Love, Harmony" on my stomach. If you have never had a tattoo on your abs, I don't recommend it. It feels like you're doing crunches or planks the entire time the needle is drilling in to your flesh.

Peace, love, harmony

Finally I started thinking about my kids and that I wanted something that represented them but in a way that I enjoyed and was special to me. I decided to go Chinese. I love Asian culture. The style, the look, the history. Love it. So, my daughter was born year of the dragon. That is where my dragon came from.






Next came a mistake, I got not only my Leo zodiac on me, but I also got a Gemini on me as well. I'll let you figure out why that was a mistake. But, At this time I decided to add a little more Asian flare. This is where the koi came in. The top one covered up my previous shoulder tattoo and it was the start of my arm being completely done.

With this one, I didn't heal well at all. It wasn't from a lack of care either. I felt very raw from this session for now reason at all. I decided it was time to find a new artist.

That's where Tom Aldana at Superstar tattoo came in. I was introduced to him and we hit it off right away. I had a few ideas, he had a few as well on what we were going to do and we started with a "rebirth" of my arm and my life. He got to take a crack at it, so he did a cover up of the Gemini with fire (which oddly enough, Leo is a fire sign) and put in the phoenix. At this stage, it was black only on it.

After healing fantastically on this one and seeing how it all ended up, I decided Tom was the guy that was going to work on my arm from now on. It was time to get my son's tattoo put on me. Both he and I are year of the tiger. That is where this one fits in. I've never really been much of a color guy either. The design I sent Tom was just the black tribal with the red eyes. He called me up the day of the appointment and goes, "yo, Rusty, we're putting color in this. It's gonna look awesome."

I was scared. the only color I really had was the fire and the Leo. That was only a little bit of shading. I was really pleased with what he came up with. Once again he out did himself to a point where I told him to put color in to the phoenix. The last piece I needed was my demon. This is a bit symbolic to me as I have had a lot of demons keeping me down over the years. This demon was put in to keep the others away.

This brings us to the big project... figuring out how it all fits together. The original plan was to have a multi colored brown tribal in the back like a tree that would have cherry blossoms on it. Well, about a month ago I got the idea to "stitch" it all together. Fit all the pieces of my life in to one spot. Frankenstein style.

We started somewhere around 6 after I got some food in me and drew on my arm for almost two hours. Tom knew what was up and I told him that it was his arm to do with now. I'm done giving direction. "Make it work."

Around 8pm we got started with the ink. The new gun he's got seems to really let him move quickly and accurately. It was nice to see how fast he was going compared to the other pieces he had done on me already.

There were points where I would look down and I had no idea that he was working another color or doing some accents on the stitches until I actually looked at where he was in the process.

I've learned over the years that I can take a beating when it comes to the needle of a tattoo gun. There are parts on me that are more sensitive than others. Ones that I just could care less about and go about my day. But I found out that I have two spots in particular that just don't jive well with me. My wrist, and my inner elbow might be the worst I have experienced so far in my life.

These wrist was painful because I couldn't control my hand. I was pressed down so I couldn't move and the needle getting dragged over my tendons was not pleasant.

My fingers would twitch, I'd make a fist without knowing it. I joked with Tom that he'd get a finger in the belly button and it would be his fault.

The inner elbow was one I did not expect.



I don't have a nice history with surgical needles. I hate them. Giving blood, IV's whatever. I'm in pain in that area for days on end. Must have some crazy bit of nerves there or something. The Frankenstein patch took about 20-30 minutes alone. He wanted to get it done right.

When you're upside down from what is being worked on, you can't really see what is going on in the mind of the artist. You don't see things in their perspective. I sat in that chair until about 12:30 this morning and there were times I had no idea what I was looking at. "Why is he shading it this way, why is that line there, why did he choose the colors he did?"

I told Tom last night again, "This is YOUR arm now. I trust you're going to finish it right."

We have one more session left to go. At least we have pictures of the outline from this time. We thought we were going to get more done, but we just did not have time. Once more session, then I'm done for a while.