changeling_

My "tribute to coffee" tattoo, done by the amazing Mark Bester of Marked for Life tattoos in Eaglescliffe. This turned out to be much smaller than I was expecting.. Though that didn't make me sit well for it! I was terrible, four hours and by the end my boyfriend had to lean on my legs to stop my whole body from shaking uncontrollably. Ribs hurt! And I was a loud one aha, couldnt stop moaning and groaning... It was worth every minute of pain though. And all things considered, it was the best tattoo experience I've had - the studio was beautiful and Mark was lovely. The most chill and genuine guy.
She's all healed now. I adore her.

The original image was a painting by Lois Van Baarle, a dutch illustrator and animator; I've adored her work for years and years, so I contacted her about a tattoo design commission. She was so friendly and incredibly lovely to work with!

I've had stuff to design for the tattoo shop - the guy I'm apprenticing under has me doing tribal flash sheets to start with, so I can get the bare basics of good solid lines and designing to flow with the body. I'm finding it more interesting than expected; but goddamn I've had more than enough of tribal.

I've been working on stuff for my Etsy shop too, so there's gonna be some new stuff stocked in there soon... I don't have many pictures though, waiting on a camera. In the meantime, this has been going on in my sketchbook.

It was his birthday last Wednesday...

We couldn't really do much, neither of us had much money... but we don't really get to spend much time together with me being so busy, so a uninterrupted day together with nothing else to do was a treat in itself. We stayed in bed till the afternoon, watched kickass2, had smoothies. and came back home. I made him cake, I bought him cake, his parents bought him cake, too much cake, cake cake cake.

With me working so much, I was getting pretty down about not getting out much... I'd start to believe I had no friends left. Because friends are people you see on a regular basis, and if you keep cancelling over and over they're just gonna give up on you, right? This is bullshit, of course. Friends, real friends are still make the effort to keep in touch. They stick around. My time and energy is incredibly precious at the moment, and if anything this has helped me figure out who is worth me spending time and energy on. I absolutely adore these girls. (Who may or may not be pretty drunk here)