Friday, October 29, 2010

It's been a few days

    So it's been a few days since I've been able to tattoo anything on anyone... business slowed down this week for some reason.  I did, however have a great weekend! I got to scuba dive for the first time in my life with Anna which was amazing... I have video and pics but haven't loaded them onto my computer yet. I'll post them tmrw or the next day.

    So today I had the rare opportunity of tattooing Mike Brown, an artist here who has been tattooing for well over 30 years. He let me redo two roses on his ankle that he did in the 70s sometime, along with a Mike Malone kanji below it that was old and faded. This was an epic opportunity!

    Here is a pic of the old tattoo....
    The upper rose was Mike's very first tattoo, which we left alone. The two below it and the kanji were my project for the day.
    He and I drew in some guidelines to work from since the inner part of the roses were practically faded away...

    Fresh new outline... He helped me along the entire time for this.

    Finished! Took me about an hour and half bc i'm super slow, but I'm happy with how it turned out and am very excited to have tattooed Mike, which definitely was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

    I'm throwing in some fun pics as well....

    So excited!!! A HUGE EPIC thank you to Mike Brown!!!! Definitely a day I will never forget!




    Until next time.... ALOHA!!!!!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010



    Any cholos, pachucos and vatos locos out there following this blog ?!?! 
    I guess not too many.  :( 
    Maybe posting some sugar skull and rosary themed sketches will bring some of them over here... 
    Let's see if the incantation ends up working out ;) ! 


Thursday, October 21, 2010

perfect circle

    So last night I did my FIRST perfect circle... This one was on Noah's other friend Kama. Super nice local dude that brought in this image.

    One one part of the circle there was an overlap with the wing so it made it look thicker that it really is. I was totally sweating over this one. Bill was with me the entire time and that helped keep me relaxed. It took about 2 hrs since I'm slow, but overall I like how it turned out and so did Kama!

    I like this view alot with his arm flexed. It shows how we lined up the design.

    Thanks to Kama for letting me do this on him! Great experience and it's going right in my portfolio.

    I'm working sales tmrw so i probably won't post anything until Saturday or Sunday. I'm going to try diving for the first time Saturday morning, so wish me luck!

    ALOHA!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Art Godoy 1988


    Found this online.. at the time, I was skateboarding professionally and tattooing to supplement the income I wasn't making from skateboarding. This was 1988 and if any of you remember the 80's... I think the first word that comes to mind is "the music sucked, the pink clothes sucked, it was a shitty time...". It wasn't easy being heavily tattooed in an industry run by NON skateboarders. How do you market this to the kids? Look at it today... they're all tattooed...

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

ALOHA monday!

    Here's what I got to do yesterday...

    This one was on a Japanese woman who was leaving town the next day...

    This one was alot of fun... there was language barrier there but our sales girl helped me out in that department since she speaks Japanese.

    This woman was so nice! She was from England and was leaving town the next day also. This was so fun to do! The foot is weird to tattoo but I think I'm getting used to it.

    This guy came in knowing that I was still learning... and had a bunch of stuff on his leg that needed fixing... this one in particular. His entire leg is (sorta) finished, it just needs more solid color and linework. Last night's project: palm tree. So I drew up a newer one on top so he can see what I was planning to do.

    This was the completed line work... this one looked more like a full palm tree like the one on the other side of his leg. This was fun to do!

    We did a little bit of shading before we called it a night. Bill was right there with me helping me along. Really excited to work on this guy again! He's going to give me his entire calf as my project! SWEET!

    Working sales tonight... tattooing Noah's friend tomorrow.

    Aloha!

Monday, October 18, 2010



    My first rose tailed, winged vintage corset...  :)



    This rearing pegasus in the lilies is a custom design requested by Rachel Dee... she plans to get it tattooed in a near future... 
    Thanx girl for asking me to do it! :)

    A great week to everyone!!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

more tattoos!

    So here are a few things that I've worked on since my last post:

    FIRST, a local guy who is friends with everyone at the shop came in and let me do my largest tattoo yet with black and grey. This was my second attempt at grey wash, and was left alone the entire time.

    This tiki took me about 3.5-4 hours and really took my time. I'm certainly no expert at this, but I have to say that it was exciting to draw up the design for the client AND tattoo the entire thing by myself. Anna was with me for questions and stuff, but for the most part I was left alone. I stuck with mostly mid tones so that it would heal light, and then once it is healed I can go in again and smooth out what I didn't do right. It's better to stay light then go too dark right away.... expecially if you're inexperienced like myself.



    Thanks to Dustin for letting me try out this tiki on him. He was super nice and definitely a team player!


     This one was done on military guy who comes in regularly to get tattooed by just about everyone at the shop. He's super nice and wanted his nickname "Jukebox" on his back.
    So here we go. Simple and black. He loved it drawn up this way so we left it.

    This one came in last night.... The kids entire family came in and everyone got tattooed! This was on the son who was recently married and was here on military business with his new wife. Anna outlined this one for me since it has to be super perfect, then I filled it in.

    After I tattooed the son, I tattooed the Mom too! She was super sweet and was really happy with her new tattoo. This was on her wrist and I did the whole thing myself.

    I also forgot to post pics of Noah's last session with me.... we have been taking a few weeks off so he can enjoy the beach, so here's the photo....

    We worked on this swirl for about 2 hours and then he went home.... this was after a long day of hiking too! It's almost healed up and then we will take some pictures. It's awesome that I can use him as a "guinea pig" to see how my tattoos are healing and get feedback from him on what I am doing differently and what feels better, etc.

    Off to print out pictures for my NEW portfolio today! My first tattoo portfolio that is.

    ALOHA!!!!!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Another turtle!

    Just finished this little turtle on a woman heading out of town tomorrow....

    She was super duper tan so the pic is a bit orange.
    This was fun to do and I was able to outline and fill in the entire thing!

    Really having a great time tattooing here in Hawaii... can't wait to do more!

    ALOHA!

Playing catch up

    So I have a bunch of stuff to show you all!

    I'm going to try and remember the order of these so bear with me!

    I did this on my friend/coworker Iona...
    This was alot of fun and challenging... especially with the swirls. I'll take a picture once it's healed so we can see how I did.

    I did this one on a super sweet Australian guy. Bill outlined it and I filled it in. Didn't take too long and I think I'm getting the hang of stretching the skin and getting the color solid.

    Did this one on an Australian girl last night actually... It's the same thing only slightly modified. Anna outlined and I filled in as well. Freckly skin is so different to tattoo.


     This came in late one night.... this guy just wanted some stars around his exsisting stuff. It was fun to do some stars finally!

    This came in for Anna the other night... So she let me outline the entire thing and then she did all the color work around the sunset scene. I'm getting better at lettering and making those lines deliberate. Here's a picture of the background from Anna....

    All finished with background..... Nice and colorful and he was really excited about it.

    This one I was allowed to do from start to finish... took me like 2 hours BUT the guy knew that I'm no speed demon as of yet.... it was challenging but I'm happy with how it came out and the dude loved it! I'm getting better at my linework and just trying to relax and focus while I'm working.

    This little one came in with the freckled girl on the hip. I didn't outline it but I filled it in and added the color. The hip area was weird tattooing, but not as bad as I thought. I liked coloring in the flower. She was super sweet and a team player for letting me tattoo her!

    At the end of the night a newlywed couple from Italy came by. I was able to draw up the lettering and fill it in. Since I haven't worked on the inner arm before Anna did the outline. She and I did 4 tag-team tattoos together last night... talk about fun! Assembly line tattooing done by request haha!

    I also tattooed his wife... Anna also outlined this and I filled it in. REALLY weird tattooing behind the ear.


    So cute.... even though it was weird, I learned alot about the skin back there. Next time I'm hoping I'll be able to outline whatever they throw at me.

    Keone stopped back in the other night to show me his island I did two weeks ago... it healed great! I may want to go a little darker in some areas... but I'm going to wait until after his wedding to do that. Not to mention he wants a half sleeve with a Hawaiian owl.... it's too big for me to do right away, but I'm going to draw it up mostly and then Bill/Anna will outline and I'll help fill in.

    Thats all for now! Sorry for the delay and I will post more later!

    ALOHA!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

World Class Tattoo Artist Scrappy Uno


    Scrappy consistently wins competitions. Plain and simple... the guy is a world class tattooist from Mexico City. He specializes in portraits and realism... black n grey. His work can be used as a standard to compare whether or not some one's work is up to par. Really... black and grey uses techniques that artists who only do color and bold lines would not understand. It's safe to say that if you understand these techniques, all the rest will be easy.

    We get lots of people who come into the shop who have been tattooed in Mexico.. usually at a resort town.. and they always laugh and say "I know it sucks, I got it in Mexico." The thing is, just as in the United States or Canada.. hell, the whole world for that matter, there are shitty artists and great artists. You just have to find them. If you plan to bring home a souvenir tattoo, why not bring in a good one?

    Scrappy sets a high standard.

    We're proud to say that he uses Godoy Machines... it's an honor to see this excellent work done with our machines!!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010





    Demekins are such amazing fishes!  
    I'll be drawing more of these from now on...

    Keep it fishy! ;)

Monday, October 4, 2010

New tattoo

    So it looks like Josh won't be coming in for a little while. He was in an accident and hurt himself... so when he's all fixed up I will work on his arm some more.

    Noah came in last night with his friend Keone, a really nice local dude who wanted a tattoo of the island of Oahu with a star over where he is from. He originally wanted just the outline of the island with a red star, but after some chatting with us for a bit, we convinced him that bigger was better, AND it gave me a challenge! This is the first time I have ever done greywash and I have to say it was so much fun! I got to work with both Bill and Anna this time, and learned a hell of a lot from this one. It's about the size of a hand and took about 1.5-2 hours with stopping for breaks and stuff.

    This is the kind of stuff I love to do!
    I can't wait to see this one healed! Thanks so much to Keone for trusting me to do this on him.

    I will write more later, I'm at work now and we have some possible clients here...


    ALOHA!

Saturday, October 2, 2010







    Three diverse examples of commissioned works I've been asked to draw lately... 

    A deep, meaningful, personal tribute to a loved one including a hummingbird and an antique dental drill; a Tudoresque owl, kinda cute but proud nevertheless... and a baby themed, bunny eared matryoshka.

    A big heartfelt thank you to Karla, Hanna and Katelyn for asking me to draw these ones! 
    I'm still very busy drawing more commissioned stuff, so if you contacted me recently, please be patient, I'm doing my best at trying to do a good job.  :)

    A great sunday to everyone!!  

    PS: Thanx to Ashley for the new blog layout! 

    underthoseneonlights

Friday, October 1, 2010

Noah part 3

    Wednesday night I tattooed Noah again... This was by far my best session with him. I got alot done and its solid. I also took a look at how the first session healed. I didn't take pics like I should have, but the first section I colored in I overworked some of the lines so its a little raised which is dissappointing. I'm hoping that those lines smooth out after a few weeks.

    Here's the newest session:
    Bill sat with me the entire time... I think I finally got the hang of color packing without overworking the skin.
    Here's a close up of the front of him. The collarbone was challenging, but not as bad as I thought.

    Here's the last one. I can't wait to see how this one heals.

    Tomorrow night I have Josh with the tribal rework so I'm hoping that healed up good as well.

    More to come...

    Aloha!
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