New Ink, Old Ink, Whatever.

Got re-inked on saturday at noon. Whole deal took about two hours, and I gotta say... this shit is fucking AWESOME. I'm still healing up (aka saran wrap and petroleum jelly) so I'll be holding off on taking pictures for a bit, but I'll post some once she's ready for a debut.

The experience itself was interesting though. Getting inked in Japan is much more intimate than the American analog. The store front itself wasn't anything to gawk at, but once yr actually in the "chair" its wholly different form America. I say "chair" because there is no chair - once I was lead to the business end of the store, I entered a very small "room" partitioned off by rice-paper walls (Anyone who's been to a Japanese restaurant knows exactly what I'm talking about) and was asked to lie down. The whole ordeal took place while lying on the floor. The artist, Hirohide (trained in Tokyo!) sat seiza-style (sitting with your legs tucked underneath you) on a zabuton (seat-pillow) for the whole thing, using a seemingly hand-made gun. In America, I might be a bit worried upon seeing something like that, but in Japan, and especially concerning tattooing, your job is your art and so I have the exact opposite reaction... if this is not uncommon, then I guess Japanese tattoo artists are kind of like Jedi, what with making their own tools and all.

Whatever the case, the result is un-fucking-believeable. This guy knows his craft and I am 100% going back to him (I've scheduled a meeting with him in 2 weeks to discuss additional work). For example, when I first had this inked, the "artist" (compared to Hirohide she probably shouldn't even be in business) told me that the picture shouldn't be that hard EXCEPT for a braid in the woman's hair, that she couldn't do it. Hirohide didn't even mention it upon entering, but I figured I'd have to do without. WRONG. To my surprise, the microscopic braid was done just like everything else - perfectly. Dude is a magician.

Unfortunately, he doesn't do traditional Japanese "tebori" tattooing, but hey I figure I only need to get that done once and so this guy is definitely going to be getting a lot of my business.