Andrea's Half-Sleeve with Mermaid

Today we are checking out an awesome traditional half-sleeve by Charlie Foos at Reade Street Tattoo Parlour. I spotted it on Andrea outside of the Fuse studios on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan:Andrea told me this was completed in three sessions of three and a half hours each and was inspired by s piece of jewelery. "I bought this pendant of a ship," she said, "and I decided I wanted a half-sleeve of something traditional." The rest is history.Thanks to Andrea for sharing this great tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;...

from: Gunnarto: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:16 AMsubject: Funny tattoo "Ride Hard Die Free"Hi,I stumbled across this tattoo online, and I haven't seen on your blog before. It is supposed to say "Ride Hard Die Free" but as you can see Google Translate made a creative interpretation of the phrase. I hope you enjoy it!http://beckmansbruk.blogg.se/2010/january/7-e-januari-1.htmlThank you for a great blog!Regards,GunnarGrammatically speaking, this tattooed phrase is Chinese, however its translation back to English is far from "Ride Hard Die Free".Granted, 免費 does mean "free of charge", 乘坐 does mean "riding, or being passenger", 硬 does mean "hard", but 模 or 硬模 is not verb for...

Kerry Unveils Some Masterpieces

A couple weeks ago, I felt like I had won the Tattoosday lottery. In my own neighborhood, I ran into Kerry, who had a bit of a tattoo peeking out of her left sleeve. I stopped her and introduced myself, and she shared some simply phenomenal work. We'll get to that left sleeve in a second, but Kerry figured I'd be impressed with this tattoo on her upper right arm:Well, she was certainly right about that!  This is a piece by Anil Gupta at Inkline Studio in Manhattan. The detail of this work is astonishing. Anil Gupta is considered a master of the biomechanical tattoo. Kerry explained: "I'd seen Gupta's work and I really wanted something in the biomechanical style ... I just thought of...

Nicole Takes Us to Candyland

At the beginning of the month, I had the pleasure of encountering a young lady named Nicole in Herald Square (34th Street and 6th Avenue, for you out-of-towners).Nicole is heavily inked, estimating that "about 45%" of her body is tattooed.So with so much work, where to begin? She offered up her lower left leg, which is fully-sleeved.I always find photographing sleeves challenging, because it is so hard to capture all of the details accurately and perfectly in a photograph. So here's a collage of Nicole's Candyland sleeve:Why a Candylamd-themed sleeve? Nicole explained, "Growing up, that was my favorite game in the whole world.Getting my tattoos never really meant anything, so that was kinda...

Musician Monday: Doug from The Sleeping and Gramp's House

This installment of Musician Monday features Doug Robinson, lead singer from the rock band The Sleeping. I ran into Doug last week in Penn Station and stopped him when I saw all of his tattoos.Doug has had some of his work featured in Tattoo Magazine and is in the current issue of Tattoo Flash, so I was indeed honored when he agreed to share a piece from his right forearm:Doug explained that this tattoo is based on a logo created by a friend of his, whose grandfather had passed away and left him his house. Doug's friend, along with Doug and three other guys, lived in the house which they dubbed "Gramp's House." The home was, as Doug told me, "a really important place for all of us," and many...

BIG DAY TOMORROW....

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Jessica: A Sugar Skull and Scream and Scream Again

In yesterday's post, I talked about meeting Corey and Jessica in front of Penn Station, and we featured two of Corey's tattoos. Today it's Jessica's turn. She praised to no end the tattoo artist who did this sugar skull, her friend Chris Handford at Perkins Road Parlor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana."They do a lot of traditional and he's originally a painter, so we just said, 'Do Whatever," and he drew up these awesome things ... he's actually a really new artist, but I would say already, skills-wise, far beyond a lot of people who have been doing it longer, especially in the South."Jessica also shared this incredible piece on her right calf:Jessica credited this tattoo to a different artist,...

Corey's Traditional Creatures

I met Corey and Jessica last month outside of Madison Square Garden on a bright, sunny afternoon. Between the two of them, they have dozens of tattoos, so I had a lovely time chatting with them. They're originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and had been tattooed by a couple of artists who are friends of theirs working out of Perkins Road Parlor.Corey credited Brent McCarron and Chris Handford with this pair of cool, traditional-style tattoos: Corey, who has 14 or 15 tattoos, just asked them to draw him something and they did.  This sabre-toothed tiger and his newest piece, the spider, about two weeks old in this photo, have a very traditional feel about them. I particularly love the yellows...

Kathy's Back, The Beginning

I spotted Kathy walking in front of Madison Square Garden, near the corner of Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street earlier this month and, although I couldn't see specifically what she had going with her tattoos, I was intrigued enough to ask.Some folks are often dismissive of me when I approach them, but Kathy was the total opposite. She was joyful and excited to share her ink and, when she removed her outer layer and adjusted her tank top, it was abundantly clear why. She had recently embarked on a full back piece and was proud of the foundation for what is ultimately going to be a phenomenal work of art:Kathy had enlisted Derek Noble of Lucky Devil Tattoo Parlor in Seattle to create this tattoo....