I REALLY HATE PEOPLE

I got to work about 45 minutes early today.  So I sat down in my room to have my breakfast- Coffee, Yogurt, and some granola made by little old ladies that love Jesus.  Turned on my laptop and realized that I left my glasses at home- it might have been the fuzzy letters on the screen that gave it away.  I decided that when I was done with my yogurt and Jesus granola, I would ride back home and get my glasses- I should have just enough time, and it's probably unfair to my customers to tattoo without them.  Now, when I get to work early, I don't turn on the lights in the shop, just in my room.  Why?  Because if the lights are on, the animals know someone is inside, and even thought the hours are clearly printed on the door, they will stand outside and bang on the door expecting that they will be let in early.  I finished my breakfast and got ready to leave.  As I was walking to the door, a guy was getting back in his car after realizing that we were not yet open for business.  I walk out and lock the door behind me, and this idiot gets out of his car and says, "How much is yo tattoos?"  I give him my standard response to his stupid question: "It depends on the size and complexity of the tattoo", and start putting my helmet on.
"But like how much for a cross?"
"We're not open yet man, we open at noon."
"Yeah, I had seen dat on yo door, but I wants like a cross, how much is yo crosses?"
"It depends on the cross- I forgot my glasses at home and I have to go get them and get back before we open.  We'll be open at noon"
"Yeah, but how much it be for like a regular size cross?"
"I don't have time to talk right now, I have to get back in time to open the shop or we WON'T be open at noon".
I got on my bike and as I was starting it I heard him mumble something- I did catch 2 words- "Rude Motherfucker"

Which part of "WE DON'T OPEN TILL NOON" did this stupid fucker not understand?  And, how was I being rude by not standing in front of the shop half an hour before we open giving him prices on his stupid cross tattoo that he's not gonna get anyway, because when I give him a price he's gonna say something like "Why y'all so damn 'spensive".

Fuck you you stupid uneducated fuck!  Go back to the ghetto and get your cheap ass ghetto tattoo!  Does this fuckhead give people prices for a Whopper and Fries when he's not at work?

Geisha and Bottles

Started this tattoo of the bottles today.  This is to commemorate 1 year sober for this customer.  He wanted a bottle of Jagermeister and a bottle of Budweiser being killed- those were his poisons of choice when he was drinking.  His wife actually got it done for him as a surprise.  He had talked to her about wanting the tattoo, and told her what he wanted.  He knew he wanted the bottle of Bud in a noose, but didn't know how he wanted it to be tied into the Jager bottle.  I suggested having the noose hanging from a knife through the Jager bottle.  Personally I think they're both pretty fuckin' nasty.  Jager is like nasty cough syrup and Bud is just piss thin beer.  I'll stick with my Absinthe, Dirty Martini's, and Guinness.  Got the outline and shading done- It's on his ribs and is a decent size, so that's all he wanted to sit for today (I don't blame him).

Also finished Jauton's Geisha tattoo today.  All that was left was some light gray shading in the background.  I'll repost with nice healed pics of this in a couple of weeks.

Some tattoos I done did today.

Traditional K-Bar with Death Before Dishonor banner, and a Black and Gray Feather.  Of course, I got crappy pictures of both of them.  The girl that got the feather will come back for me to get a nice healed pic, and I'll repost it then.  The guy with the K-bar wants more work done, so hopefully I'll get a healed pic of it as well.   The feather tattoo was fun- I've done realistic feathers before, but never one that looked like it was floating.  She wanted something similar to the floating feather at the beginning of 'Forrest Gump'.  She also specified that she wanted a 'downy' feather.  It took a while to find proper reference- there are lots of pictures of floating feathers, but not too many that have a very downy look.

Not Another Skate Deck!

Yes, another damn skate deck.  I wanted to do something where it looked like I had striped over an older existing design.  I painted a stencil style design, then scuffed it up with a scotch brite pad and some goof-off.  I should have taken a picture of the design before I distressed it, cause it looked pretty cool, but I didn't- DAMN IT!.

Then, I added the striping.

As usual, this is for sale.  All of the cool Hand Painted stuff I have for sale can be found here:

Stripes and Stuff by Dave

Pig Koi

A couple of years ago,  I was trying to do 100 5x7 watercolor paintings.  Well, I think I managed to get about 40 or so done before I stopped for no apparent reason.  In the paintings, I decided to do 10 weird pig animals- I was gonna call those '10 (weird) Little Piggies'.  I ended up with 6 (maybe some day I'll do 4 more).  I've wanted to do tattoos of the pig creatures ever since I painted them.  Today I got to do one.  A Pig Koi also known as the Poi or the Swine-Fish.  It's funny because it's a goofy painting/tattoo of a Koi with a Pig's head and a pig leg instead of a fin, but it's also funny because I did the tattoo on one of the many cops that I tattoo.  Ignore the little tribal fish that he got when he was 16.

And, here's the original painting:

If anyone is interested in a tattoo of a pig-animal, I will do any of the at 20% off my regular hourly rate.  That's $100 per hour instead of $125.  Here's the others:

They are (in order):  A Piggle, a Bat-Pig, a Hog-O-Dile, a Piger, and a Snig.

Skulls, Roses, and Absinthe

Well, here's another damn pinstriped Absinthe bottle.  I guess you can count on seeing another striped Absinthe bottle every month or so- that's usually about how long it takes me to go through a bottle.  It could be like some kind of drunken calendar- The 12 Months of Absinthe.  Maybe when I hit 12, I'll cut my ear off.

Here's a simple tattoo I did yesterday- Skulls and Roses.  The customer wanted a Black and Gray piece, but wanted 2 of the roses to be red.  I never get tired of tattooing skulls, and I'd be willing to bet that you would have a hard time finding a tattooer that doesn't love doing skulls.

My Damn Helmet

So, I've been doing all this striping on just about anything I can get my hands on, but hadn't done anything to make my own helmet look all fancy.  Mostly because it's rare that I'm not actually using it.  So, I finally got around to doing something with my helmet.  I had every intention of taking some cool step by step pictures, and I started off OK.  I got some pics right after I did the leafing, then I got caught up in working on it and forgot to take any more pictures.

Here's the pics from right after doing the leaf- I used a Carousel Blue Leaf- I think that Variegated Red would have worked better on the green helmet, but since I hadn't tried the Carousel Blue yet, that's what I used.

I then added a thick outline of Medium Green around all the leafing, and did some striping using Medium Green, Emerald Green, and Imitation Gold.  Just in case anyone is interested, I used a Mack 00, Kafka 1 and Kafka 3 for my brushes.

I'm pretty damn happy with the way it turned out.

Doré Tattoo

While I am a big fan of the work of Gustave Doré, it's never really been something that I wanted to tackle as a tattoo.  Well, a customer came in requesting one of his illustrations from The Inferno.  So, here's what we got done in the first 3 hour sitting.

Nothing says 'POOP' like Gold Leaf

Did this to hang on the bathroom door at my shop.  Variegated Red Leaf and 1-shot.

Skate Deck and Laptop

Here's another skate deck I just finished:

I also re-striped my laptop.  I pinstriped it after I had only been pinstriping for about a month.  The other day, I decided to take the striping off and re-do it (now that I'm better, my laptop needed to be updated).

I had plans to do a painting of the flying eye on the other side with one wing running off the right side and the other crossing over the striping on the left side.  I'll probably still do it, but I kinda like it the way it is.

And here's a couple of pics of my 09 V Star 950, Carla, just for the hell of it.

The Best Videos EVER!

Some of my all time favorite videos: