New work on my right arm sleeve tattoo for Brother John

I just got back from another session with Dave at The Dutchman Tattoos in Vancouver. He did about 3.5 hours of intense deep shading on the already existing line work that he did last time. I expected him to get farther along, but he is really digging in to the shading, adding a LOT of amazing details, really working it.



The newer work really blends beautifully with the piece Dave did last year on the top of my forearm.



The area around the spinal cord has an amazing amount of detail, the black areas behind the boney bits have another whole level of subtle designs working in the black areas....



This session left my arm very, very red with inflammation. Interestingly, a lot of people have said they really like the red colour, and I am considering asking Dave to add some red after the black shading has healed.

Later this month, on January 28th and 29th (my birthday) I will be sitting for two whole days of magnificent pain and tattooing ecstasy. I am returning to Dutchman Tattoos in New West, Vancouver, to have my favorite tattoo artist, Dave Nicholson, complete my right arm with a full sleeve, covering every square inch of flesh...and finishing my memorial tattoo for my dear departed brother John.


The new work starts out with the circle and triangle on the inside of my wrist. It moves up the arm in curling smoke and liquid fire, morphing into the anarchy symbol, and then into the skull of a salmon....


It curls around the inside of my arm where it morphs in to a bio mechanical spinal cord...


And it warps around the back side of my arm where there is a Burning Man symbol...

A tribute to my recovery

This design will be going on my right arm, on the inside of the arm. The circle and triangle will be on the inside of my wrist, and the flames and smoke will undulate up my arm, and swirl around the elbow. It is designed to fit perfectly together with the tattoo I recently had done as a memorial for my Brother John. This is particularly poignant for me, as my Brother was killed by his hopeless addiction to alcohol and drugs, and this tattoo represents my freedom from addiction to alcohol and drugs.....there IS hope!

This is a very rough idea of what it might look like. I just did a quick comp in photoshop, the image is not properly wrapped around my arm.