EK:
We've been building a bank of stories and blogs to post, though the shop keeps our hands and brains at work enough that we delegate a day to publish the blog. Last week, we had our hands full between inking, piercing, entertaining and doing consults, so this one comes a little late. Well, better late than never.
Andy came to us about a month ago, to ask us to cover up an old piece he had. We bumped into him by chance as he happened to be looking for us, at the Western restaurant, Wild Basil, almost directly opposite the entrance to the shop, and it was pretty evident from the start that he was a lot like the shop regulars we had back in the States -- he's laidback, he likes a laugh or two, and he brings his own music to share. Hey, new music to listen to is a bonus, right?
(As an aside, we welcome almost any music any friends or clients might bring, so long as it is not preachy, or brain-numbinglyrepetitious or brain-numbing per se ... and yes, we have a definite lean towards the genre of rock)
He's spent some time in Glasgow (which I suppose makes him part Glaswegian), and joined the Scottish Navy for a while. A sense of patriotic duty led to this tat, which has been on him for over 10 years: Yup, it's Taz bearing the Scottish flag and a banner telling where he's from. Personally, I thought it was pretty cute. Come on, who doesn't like the Tazzer?
We kicked around some ideas as to what to cover it up with, and he ended up asking to have two different drawings done, from which he would choose. Now I have said it time and again that the best coverups are always custom drawn to fit the wearer. You just can't find a piece of flash and plonk it on top of an old tat. Well, you can, it's just not always as effective. So it was a custom coverup all the way.
The first I drew was of a koi (his first choice) curling to leap upwards -- traditionally, of course, the koi jumping upwards turns into a dragon once it enters the heavenly skies. Maybe that is why the Cantonese call it "kum loong yee" (erm, golden dragon fish? I'm not sure) A symbol of great growth, prosperity and good luck. And a thistle in the background, as it's Scotland's national flower.
Initially, he worried whether it would be fitting to have a thistle with a koi or not, and my answer was, well, if it fits you, why worry about what anyone else would say? When it comes to tats, it's almost always about the person who wears it, and never the society aorund the person.
The second version was an old school sailing ship, but Andy said he'd never live it down with his friends so we KO'ed that option. The line drawing is still with me.
Halfway through, he emailed me asking to insert the words "The World Is Yours" which are found on the banner of a sculpture. Which happened to be a prop in that Al Pacino classic, Scarface. I really couldn't think of anything more befitting the piece, so we proceeded by picking a Gothic-style treatment to the words and pumped it into an illustrative style banner.
We also opted for black and grey (he's not real big on loads of color) with the thistle coloured in, and some 'backlight' in the scales to further obscure the blue.
These pics show a little bit of the process:
Say hi to Taz! Isn't he a cutie!
Say goodbye to Taz. And the coverup's done, after the second session. Greyscale done. The white highlights are not so evident at this point. Mainly because it was late evening when the pic was taken and his skin was still pretty red. And we've never Photoshopped a pic in our lives :)
All in all, we had a good time having Andy around. Oh, and speaking of bringing music, he introduced us to bands like Kasabian and I had my first listen of Arctic Monkeys. I know, I know, it sounds like I've been living under a rock not to have heard the Monkeys, but yanno, half the time I am humming Zeppelin in my head, and they're kinda sorta like almost musical grandfathers to the Arctic Monkeys...sort of. hehe.
Next time, I'll tell you about meeting a new client (who I'm lucky to now also call a friend) who could have/most probably indeed have crossed paths with me before in the past, not only once, but twice. But that's another story for another time.
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