New Ink!

I started a new sleeve with the incredibly talented Manny Lopez in Phoenix, AZ and I have literally never been so happy with ink in my life!

To tell you the truth, when I got my first sleeve, I wanted to sand it off my arm. I spent a lot of time crying about how it turned out. I had a drawing I emailed my artist, I know tattooists aren’t apt to copying and pasting someone elses work, but I figured he’d keep it the sameish and we’d all be happy. I mean, I drew it myself. It was going on MY body. I couldn’t get my hands on the original drawing my dad did of my mom, with peacock feathers for hair, it was beautiful. I started pulling pictures off the internet and drew one myself. It took a lot of time and I loved it.

The tattoo I ended up with looks nothing like what I wanted. I’ve had it fixed and worked on, but it’s just, NOT something I’m happy with. I’m almost embarrassed. I know that sounds horrible, but it was something that meant a lot to me and it doesn’t make me 100% happy.

I had asked previous artists about getting a bird cage tattoo. Not just any cage, but a Tunisian cage my grandmother brought back from Africa. It hung in our house while I grew up and it hangs in mine now and my son is obsessed with it, just like I was when I was a kid. Both artists I spoke with said it couldn’t be done. There was too much detail, it’s a white cage, so coloring and highlighting would be difficult, blah, blah, blah…

Then, then there was Manny.

He likes a challenge and when I told him what the other artists said, he told me he’d do it. He’d get the whole sleeve I wanted, exactly how I wanted it. So we began…

I made a collage of the inspiration I sent him:

 

The cage is the bottom right picture, the rest are details, birds, feathers, crucifix, that are going to be incorporated into it.

Here’s what I ended up with:

 

 

This was the stencil he used.

 

He used a single needle, which was amazingly painful. I can’t WAIT to finish the rest of the sleeve with that bad bitch… Yeezus.

 

It’s going to be full color and a 3/4 sleeve, when it’s finished.

Red, swollen and bloody, here’s the first photos of it. I know it settles over time, so I’ll post some more when it’s changed and healed.

I loooooove it. I just want to finish it, but I looooooove it.

Go check out Manny’s page Art by Manny 2.0 and like it. Your feed will be more beautifully inked, because of it.

He also decked me out with some tee’s for Inkorporated, his new line he started up. Best believe I’ll be blowing up #inkorporated, on a social network, near you.

Stay tuned for more ink coming mid November and find Manny on IG @tattoomanny and #tattoomanny

MUAH!