Just to mention, I am able to reach him, just not anytime I want to… He doesn’t take more than one or two days to answer my messages.
Anyway, all I need now is to gather some money so I can start working on the sleeve, we’ve got a few ideas already, when I give him the signal he’ll draw me the first one or two pieces and we will move from there. I’ll reply to this thread with any new information or progress I get.
Darn, I’m so excited haha

@peterpoose 131412 wrote:

Wow nice work!

Where is he based?

I know right? He’s based in Cianorte, in the state of Paraná, Brazil.
He’s probably not famous yet because he’s in a small town, but he’s changing his studio to somewhere bigger sometime soon and I’m doing all I can to spread his name around, he definetly deserves it. I even hand out business cards for him lol

Awesome, I will check both the band and the style you mentioned.
Yeah, the tattoo has a little black metal grip to it, since it was done in my artist’s “own style”, and he’s a pretty hardcore black metal guy, with a inverted cross tattooed by himself across his eye and such lol
I’ve traded a few messages with him, he said that both the octupus and the girl in wolf’s mask would work nice as the sleeve, so I guess I’ll go with the later and keep the octopus for the other arm.
I’ve still got to gather some more money before getting it done, and when I schedule it he’ll draw me a new one from scratch, based off the references I send him. The girl and wolf will take about half of my forearm, and it’ll be done first, then we’ll keep adding a few more big images and when the arm has been quite a bit filled we will trhow in the background.
That leaves me wondering what else I could get… Maybe something to represent my father, since the lady will be related to my mother… But that will take some thinking and researching first

Okay! New idea!
Here’s a picture of a tattoo I really liked while browsing online:

What if I used this one on the sleeve instead, and left the octopus to be done in a little bit more realistic style way on the other forearm? Do you think this would look good in black and grey, and along the owl? Though I think I’d remove the arrows and bloodstains… This tattoo fits perfectly for some stuff me and my family have been going trhough for some time already, and I’m in love with the art

@iggybuddi 120406 wrote:

My artist was $120 hour. Charged me $650, including my deposit. And I gave him a tip in addition to that. I would’ve payed twice that. He’s amazing and deserves it. I’ll have this for my entire life. It turns out to be pretty cheap when you think of how long you’ll have it.

His rate is now at $150, due to 7-8 month waiting list. He completely deserves that.

I completely agree with you. If it’s a good artist, they sure thing deserve all the money they can get.
I was not planning on asking for a discount by any means, and to be completely honest, I have a X amount of money to spend on my tattoo, and if the guy really does a good job, I’ll cash him in the extra amount I’ll be saving for his work being cheap, and in addition I’ll do all my upcoming tattoos with him, and give him a good word around as well.
I said the other guy is nuts because he’s not all THAT great, and this is a poor people country in general. To add to that, he did not even answer my messages whilist this other guy I’m getting tattooed with was very nice and sympathetic.

About the tattoo again, I’ve still got some time to think on it and improve the overall idea… And I was thinking that maybe the skulls would end up giving me a hard time finding a job or something… I mean, tattoos overall are not liked, and skulls are simply frowned upon by everyone.
Do any of you got any idea of something I could substitute the skulls for? If I just can’t figure anything that looks as good, I’ll just go with it and if need be, use a long sleeve shirt to work (which would be torture considering I live in Brazil, haha)
I like the snake idea though, as if it meant a bad vicious cicle. So if it mixes well with this, it would be awesome.

Ok, some news here!
I got scheduled with Veron to start my tattoo on day 15. I’m going for full black and gray on a realistic style. I chose this because personally I prefer black and gray, and I think it’ll be harder for me to just “stop liking” it, if you know what I mean.
So, I’ll stick around and when time comes, I’m going to upload pictures of the progress.
The guy said it will take from 3 to 4 sessions to complete, and he will free hand everything except the wolf, which I’m already searching for images of.
It’s also going to be a lot cheaper than I had imagined, god bless the miracles of underapreciated artists from small towns.