Hi!

As someone maybe know from this thread: http://www.thetattooforum.com/greetings-norway-t15726.html?p=73705#post73705 I’m working on a full bodysuit in the neo-Oriental style. I will use this thread to share my experiences with you, and write about the process around to getting a full bodysuit.

My adventure started 4th July 2009 in Bulgaria. Here I got my first tattoo, and the interest in the world of tattoos exploded. My first tattoo was a black & grey portrait on the inside of my right forearm. It took about 3 hours to complete and I paid just over 200 dollars.

As soon as I got home to Norway, I started to examine the tattoo community closer. I quickly found an artist I liked, and booked hours for a leg sleeve with him. The waiting list was long and I did not get sessions before mid-November the same fall. In the meantime, I used the time to read everything I came across about tattoos, history, styles, trends, technique and so on. The wait was long, so on the 28th September 2009, the day after my 18. birthday, I got my second tattoo.

This was a skull with a dagger and roses and was placed on my left thigh. The artist who did this was an apprentice, so I paid about 350 dollars, pretty cheap for a 4-hour job in Norway.

The time flew and before I knew it the calendar showed 12th November and I went in to get started on the leg sleeve. After the consultation a few months earlier we had decided to do a sleeve in traditional oriental style with a dragon, geisha and hannya mask as motives.

Since this was a pretty big job, we only got the lines done the first two sessions. But the third time we started with coloring and shading, and I suffered my way through 2 hours of work on the left foot and a little coloring on the dragon.

At this point, December 2009, I had come into contact with many people who shared the same interest as me. It is one of these I can greatly thank today that I have now come where I am. During a trip to Oslo, the capital of Norway, I went to visit a studio that a friend of mine had talked about for months. The artist here was told to be extremely talented, but I had never seen any of his work itself. At the moment I crossed the threshold of his studio and got a look at some of his big neo-oriental work, I understood that the tattoos I had until then was rubbish compared to the art that this man made. We talked a lot, and it all ended up with booking 70 hours in order to do a huge phoenix on my right leg, hip and stomach. I was like an intoxication of happiness at having been booked time with this artist!

As soon as I got back to Stavanger, I canceled the remaining sessions I had with the other artist. I was no interested to go to an artist which work only appeared average in my eyes.

The wait at the new studio was long, very long, and my first session was in June 2010. The winter went by, and we came to March before I spoke with the artist again. It emerged that the artist was looking for full body suit models. I signed up immediately! A deal was made, and soon I was in a small and exclusive club of models for this amazing artist.

In the wait, I graduated from high school, and suddenly the day had come for departure to Oslo and the first session. On 30th June we started up with drawing and ghost lines. Since then I have traveled to Oslo once a month and have now logged 41 hours under the needle. We have lined up the left arm, back, chest and stomach and done some coloring and shading.

The style is neo-oriental, and we have decided to use different designs from Japanese and Chinese culture as the main theme – but more about this later.

To avoid as much traveling, and to get sessions on a weekly basis, I move to Oslo in January 2011. Then there will be four hour sessions twice every week until we are done. The entire project is estimated at about 500 hours, and after that we are going on a world tour to attend conventions in America, South America, Asia and Europe! 🙂

TBC…