Tattoo! And trip to Texas.
It's been a long time since I've used LJ, but a lot of fun things are happening now / happening soon, so!
A little brief background information:
Several years ago, I discovered Nick Baxter (currently based out of Austin, TX) when I was looking for someone to do a half(+) sleeve for me. I contacted him because I love his bold, beautiful, colorful style and envisioned it being a perfect fit for what I had in mind for a major body art endeavor.
A long story (and three years!) later, I finally went to Texas!
Lots of images and more description under the cut:
Honestly, when I first contacted Nick I didn't necessarily expect a response. As an internationally renowned artist, he typically does not take on new clients very frequently. When he does, he only responds to pitched ideas that particularly intrigue him. From what I've heard, the majority of people who contact him never even hear back at all. Therefore, I was incredibly gratified to not only get a super prompt response, but to have him suggest (upon seeing my e-mail signature stating I was a web developer) a trade of services: tattoo for a fine arts portfolio.
We made some arrangements, reached an agreement, and then there were several gaps in communication. I had some health problems, he was busy, etc etc, but eventually everything fell into place and finally-- nearly three years later-- I found myself flying to Texas with my best friend (who designed Nick's logo, by the way, which he is now using to brand himself).
Anyway, so! Our trip to Texas. We went to San Antonio, Austin, and Gruene.
Photos from the "vacation" part of the trip:
↓ The Alamo, San Antonio To be honest I wasn't overly impressed by this, and they didn't permit photography inside the buildings, but at least I got to check into Foursquare claiming to have found Pee Wee's bike. :P
↓ Paseo del Río / San Antonio Riverwalk This was a neat stretch of the San Antonio river lined with shops and restaurants. Pretty tourist-trappy, but the Tex-Mex was delicious.
↓ Lunch on the Riverwalk Delicious fresh tacos and 28 oz. tumblers of margaritas. :3
↓ The Arneson River Theater - La Villita Historical Village on the riverwalk
↓ Austin - Food trucks on SoCo Austin is kind of the mobile food capital of the US, and there were tons of food trucks parked in various lots around the city, but particularly along South Congress. We ate pitas and cupcakes at the trucks. All of the food we ate in Austin was dirt-cheap and consistently delicious.
↓ Vegan chocolate cheesecake at Beets Cafe in Austin We ate at a little raw cafe with lots of vegan options. This cheesecake was better than most real cheesecakes I've had. :L..
↓ Zilker Botanical Gardens in Austin Because of the water restrictions currently in effect, most of the fountains and streams were dry, but it was still nice to stroll through the botanical gardens. They also had an herb garden and I wanted to eat everything in it.
So. We flew in on Saturday and then spent Saturday in Austin. (I regret not taking a photo of the bloody mary I was served in a bar we went to... it was almost literally a meal. It had bacon and bleu cheese in it along with all the other veggie accoutrements.) We spent Sunday in San Antonio and then on Monday we went back to Austin and also to Gruene, which was a really nice little historical village where we went wine-tasting and sauce-tasting. I brought back the most amazing pesto. I'm still impressed I was able to get it through airport security; they confiscated my friend's artichoke bruschetta. :(
And then the tattoo. It was two sessions, Tuesday and Wednesday. The first day was a lot of prep work because Nick's stencil machine was broken so he had to retrace his drawings by hand and then pen the rest onto my arm. I also had to train him on how to manage and add content to the website I built for him for his fine arts portfolio. All total we were in his studio for about 8 hours on Monday, 5 of which were actual tattooing.
↓ My specific instructions for him regarding the bee were to make it 'prehistoric', not necessarily an accurate depiction of any bees that currently exist today (the whole theme of the tattoo is Cretaceous)
↓ A little more than halfway through the first day.
↓ Working on the top of the forearm.
↓ The elbow sucked about as much as I expected it to (or maybe a little less, because I was expecting it to be unbearable).
↓ Here are the results of the first 5 hours, looking a little less ouchy the morning after:
↓ And the second day: the parasaurolophus. I asked for the dinosaur to have a sort of "dissection" effect, where parts of the skull and tissue would be peeling away. Since it's very difficult to photograph a wraparound 3D tattoo on something like an arm, here's a photo of the flat drawing:
↓ The drawing on my arm:
↓ And the results of the second session: 4 hours... he blazed through the dinosaur's skin, I couldn't believe how fast that went! PS: Sorry about the lotion gobs in the photos.
So that was it for the first trip. Eventually the dinosaur will be a blueish green with orange markings, and he said he wants to do a detailed texture for its scaly, pebbly skin. A lot of the background elements (the curled fern fronds) are just roughed in for now, they will be refined and detailed at a later time once this is all healed up.
I'm honestly not sure how many more trips it will take to complete this sleeve, but my guess is at least two. We are already in the process of scheduling the second trip, which will most likely be in January. He recommends doing all the return-trips within a few months of each other so the ideas stay fresh in his head for the duration of the project.
I may actually be sitting for the next session at the Austin tattoo convention January 13th-15h... so if anyone wants to come see me (and come see Nick work!), ping me!! (Unless he's at a convention, he normally works out of a private studio.)
Oh, also: my work is sending me all-expenses-paid to Seattle for An Event Apart in the beginning of April. I've been doing so much traveling this past year and it looks like it's going to keep up into 2012 too! :D