Hey all, my first post here. I got my first tattoo about 6 months ago. It was a rather large piece, a black and grey sycamore tree, with the words “work in progress” in script. About 3/4 of the tree has foliage and the rest is bare branches. It goes from about 3 inches under my belly button, up onto a few of my ribs.
I’ve been thinking about getting a quarter or half sleeve on my left arm. I’m thinking a traditional Japanese piece with a red and black koi, traditional waves and maybe some other things. The thing is, I have no japanese heritage or any real significance for what kois represent. I purely want it because I love the style of that type of art, and I think it is beautiful artwork. I’ve always been a fan of traditional japanese tattoos. So my question is for people who have tattoos that may not be particularly meaningful, did you end up regretting them or loving them ?
Getting a tattoo purely because you think it looks good is completely fine. This whole idea that a tattoo needs to have personal meaning to be a good tattoo is pure bullshit. I personally only have a 1 tattoo with any real deep meaning (flower with a banner saying “mom”). The rest i got because they look awesome. If japanese work is what you want, then by all means get it!
Thanks for sharing that belly piece. Fun sitting huh? haha. As for the Japanese piece……get what you want as many above have said. Do you know who you are going to go to for it? If you are going to get it make sure you goto someone realy familiar with Japanese art as the difference will be seen.
Yeah it was lots of fun…. Ha. A couple cigarette breaks helped break it up. But i absolutely love how It came out, and it was a great first experience. I’m still looking for an artist. I live in ct for the summer and go to school in new Hampshire. I’d be willing to travel a little. I’ve checked out ct a little, because I wanted to ge it started this winter break, but didn’t find much at all. Any suggestions?
Those always help to take breaks. For New York I would say speak to NY Adorned or Three Kings. DC speak with Karl Hedgepath or anyone at JinxProof Tattoo. All three of these shops also have regular guest tattooers so they may have some Japanese style specialist coming through soon???? Jinxproof just had Jef Whitehead and who knows maybe he’ll come back through? Hope this helps?!?
I’m also in CT and very familiar with the artists there. There aren’t really any traditional Japanese style artists but Julio Rodriguez at Hope Gallery in New Haven does some Japanese work and is very good at many styles. Otherwise, go to NY where there are many. NY Adorned and King’s Avenue come to mind first, remember you’ll have to wait for an appt. and pay NY prices. If I can be of any help regarding CT artists just let me know. Good luck.
I like the tree a lot, looks really great and the branches look neat too. I also got a tattoo for the art as well and it doesn’t have a true ‘story’ or ‘meaning’ behind it but simply because it looks neat and i liked the look of it. Most of my tattoos also have a lot of symbolism behind them, like my dragon here:
Symbolism:
* Courage
* Strength
* Raw power and force
* Wisdom and reason
* Protectors of sacred items
Thanks Adler, my search ended with the same conclusion about there not really being any traditional japanese artists around here. Julio’s work did look pretty damn nice though, I’m pretty close to New Haven, so I’ll probably stop in and see if I can talk to him about it. Honestly I would love to go to Ny, but its a pain to get down there and I’m a college student so this piece will probably end up being done slowly. However, if some trips to NY and NY prices is what it takes to get what I want, I’ll have to buckle down and do it. Thanks again for the help. TooManyNotEnough, thanks too.
EDIT: I wil definitely go talk to Julio still, but everyone at Adorned looks absolutely amazing, especially liking Kaz’s work.
No problem, and if you’re still thinking about NY, these guys are pretty good too…David Sena and Rodrigo Melo at North Star Tattoo.
http://northstartattoo.com/index.php
Keep me posted about Hope Gallery and how you do with Julio. That’s JoeCapobianco’s shop and all the artists are great and all cool people. One of my pieces is from Tim Harris there. Good luck.
i have many hours under the chair and none of my ink have any meaning. i just get them cuz they are cool. not every ink needs to have some sappy miami/la/london ink story behind it.
as for shops i would agree with what others said about ny/brooklyn adorned (specifically dana helmuth and chris odonell,) and hope gallery.i would also recommend off the map tattoos as they have some of the best guest artists in the world.
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