Okay, not in space. As I might have mentioned, my brother Trevor decided to get a tattoo to celebrate the fact that he is now a man. Or something. Whatever his reasons, he wanted his first (and I’m finding that he wants even more, like, NOW) tattoo to be something drawn by me. It worked out that he was going with the afore posted dragon wing design. He went to “Art With A Pulse Tattoo, Inc.”, the outside of which is pictured here:
They’ve been in business for 12 years and for the last ten years they’ve been voted the “Best Tattoo Shop” in Colorado Springs. They are certainly the best looking and cleanest shop I’ve ever been in. And, as fate would have it, they happen to be located right on my path to work, so every day that I’ve gone to work for the past five years I’ve driven by them. They opened at noon and we were about 12 minutes early so I took the opportunity to take the last two pictures of Trevor before his skin was forever marked with my doodle:
Is it my imagination or does he look a bit worried… A tinch apprehensive… nah. He’s just bored.
Here it is. This is the last time a photo will show this spot unmarked.
They opened up a few minutes early and let us in which was nice of them. The first thing I noticed was how bright the studio looked. The second was the massive amount of cool stuff simply everywhere. Here are some inside shots and a few close-ups of things that caught my eye:
Note the mirror*
Cool stool.
Cool skull.
Heather and I both decided that Derek really needs one of these curtains for his kitchen. Not that we’ll buy it or anything. He just needs it.
And the Adventure kicks into high gear:
I really wish I had been prepared to take a shot of Trevor’s expression when the needle first hit. But I wasn’t. Dammit.
The name of the artist doing the tat is Carl. Afterward Trevor said that he was a lot of fun to talk to and did a good job keeping him distracted from the sheer mortal agony that was tearing through his arm and burying itself deep, deep in his soul. I’m paraphrasing, of course. He’s also the only staff member who’s picture I intentionally took mainly because I already felt like I was being intrusive with my camera as it was. Not through anything that was said by anyone there of course. Everyone was very friendly in fact. I just get that way when I’m carrying a camera and I don’t know why. That’s the reason I have so few pictures of my time in England. I’m strange. Now back to Trevor and his latest exercise in pain:
Seconds before I took this photo Trevor was crying, but he sucked it up before I could snap the button. Seriously. Okay, not seriously. He never even made a sound other than when he was talking. He didn’t even admit that it hurt at all until we were almost done eating lunch at Subway.
Here’s a mirror shot I took in an attempt to get a good view of the needling. It wasn’t too successful. I did get a good photo of my big belly though. And my camera purse. Damn, I’m sassy.
See that expression or Trevor’s face? I get that a lot from him. No idea why.
Here it is part way done. I don’t know if I was doing Trevor a favor by having Carl stop for a minute or not.
Almost done now… Any minute… Just hang in there…
And here it is! Look at that smile! I figure it either means, “Man that looks great!” or “Gosh I’m glad the needle has stopped!” I’ll post another picture after the tattoo has healed. He’s already trying to get me to design the next piece he wants. And there you have it. Trevor’s First Tattoo Adventure! Not In Space!
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*The guy walking forward in the mirror is the artist who I talked to at length about what I would need to do in order to start selling my designs as flash. He was very informative, helpful and encouraging. He also checked out the sketchbook that I had brought along and actually seemed to like my work. I know it sounds strange, but very little artwork I do seems “good” to me. I have no idea why. I also didn’t catch his name because my mind was still trying to wrap itself around the idea that I might finally be able to do something with my art that I could enjoy, but I’ll be back by there with more questions I’m sure.
