Japanese Tattoos on an Autumnal Theme

Seems to be that without trying deliberately, the theme of tattoos in the studio this week have all been very autumnal - koi,maple leaves, reds,oranges and rusts... wonderful!

Sword Geisha and Persephone Sleeve Tattoos

Been away on a short break to Cornwall which was fantastic - beautiful scenery, great folks, and pastys, Cornish ice cream and cream teas. Local beers were pretty good too. But now am back to the tattooing with a vengeance - above is the first sitting of Joe's Art Deco style Persephone sleeve, based on the Rosetti painting. Soon she will be surrounded by summer flowers and wintery trees.
Also shown is Valerie's sword geisha sleeve - with the owl and horse - shoe on the inside of her arm. Latest additions include butterflies and more cherry blossom on the back of her shoulder.

Japanese Sleeve Tattoo with a Twist (of Lemon)

This tattoo has been ongoing for a couple of years - partly due to the fact that the client, Paul, studies Japanese and disappeared to Tokyo for an academic year... ...we actually met up with him when we were over there last April so he could show us round.
The original list for his design contained a huge number of ideas - as is often the case with tattoo designs I had to persuade him to whittle them down to a few less- but the 'contents' list is still fairly impressive: Mercury, milk, honey, tarot symbols, coins, a man's hand holding a wand, a woman's hand holding a peach, several jewels, a pomegranate, flowers, bees, a cup of green tea with a slice of lemon... all rendered in an Art Deco style against a less than traditional background of floral kimono fabric in sumi grey.Great fun And now it's done. You can see some of Paul's other Japanese inspired tattoos on my facebook page 'Venus Flytrap Tattoo'

Japanese Style Tattoos - Photos from Australia

Just went into my email to find a whole load of photos from Jamie, a long-distance customer from Australia. He'd promised to send me some pics of the tattoo work I'd done on him, and here they are -
complete with added sunshine.

The first piece I did on Jamie was a fox (Inari) and rabbits against a traditional grey background. The upper half of his arm was already tattooed - so I drew the fox design to match his existing work and not create a 'join' halfway down his arm. The cherry blossom and the background are not drawn the way I would normally do - but in this piece continuity was obviously important so I adapted them to suit. I think this result works much better than a 'tattoo of two halves' would ever have done.

When he came to get his next tattoo from me, Jamie pretty much gave me free rein - he said he wanted a rabbit sitting at the waters edge looking down at a turtle which was swimming up towards it, and cherry blossom (always a good thing to add in my book!) The tattoo is to celebrate the birth of his beautiful baby daughter, Darcy.We did the tattoo in two longish sessions and one finishing session - because he was travelling halfway round the planet time was of the essence! I liked the way the 'underwater' effect worked out so much it's appeared a few times since in other pieces I'm drawing up.

Japanese Dragon Tattoo Sleeve Design

Just finished this design for a Japanese style dragon sleeve tattoo - the colour of the dragon (teal green) and the choice of flowers (forget-me-nots and red freesias) is not very 'traditional' in the Japanese sense - but the overall effect is great!

This will be a long term project and I'll post pics of the different stages as we go.