richie_sweden

Yesterday I visited the London Tattoo Convention. I had an awesome time although I arrived very late due to a very hung over friend and trouble finding our way.

We didn't get away from home in High Wycombe until 4 p.m so we arrived in London at about 4.30. After we passed a few stops in the tube my friend got so sick he had to get of and throw up, this cost us about an extra hour, since we also managed to walk the wrong way from the tube station we got of at. When he started to feel a little better we went down to the tube again and this time we got all the way to Liverpool Street Station although none of us never thought about writing the name of the street where The Oldman Brewery was so of course no one knew where it was and we didn't see any tattooed people so we just took of, of course in the wrong direction!! After an expensive phone call back home to Sweden we found out the name of the street and eventually found a cab to drive us there. So finally after a couple of hours we were there. Great success!!

So we arrived at the Old Truman Brewery at about 6 p.m and we started wandering the ground floor looking through the stands we started to get disappointed as it was so small!! So we just hung out some more, talked to Woody, watched "the world's most tattooed man" and then went for something to eat. On the way out we took some programs which we didn't see on the way in. So we started looking through this and now we realized how truly stupid we are!! We did not see that there were stairs to the other levels! So we ate our hamburgers and went back and now we realized what we've paid 18 for.

So we started to walk by all the stands, unfotunately this was pretty late now (about 7.30 I guess) and when we came to the SuicideGirls booth they had already left. I would have loved to come by and meet the guys who were there.

So we continued to watch all the amazing tattooists perform their work and I got to see one of my favorite artists Filip Leu "in action".

I've been trying to reach Filip for a couple of months to see if I could get a tattoo by him at the convention. I've sent e-mails, letters and tried to call him, never recieved an answer though. I wanted to talk to him yesterday but he was busy all the time when I passed his "booth" and I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted to talk to him. If anyone have talked to him or even had a tattoo by him please let me know how you did it

Someone I got the chance to talk to though was Wido De Marval who is another one of my favorite artists. He was an apprentice at Filip Leu's studio earlier but know he has his own. I'm planning on doing a Japanese styled sleeve on my right arm so I really want Wido and Filip to do some work and Wido was really up for it, which was really great to hear!

So after this me and my friend continued to walk through the entire area a few times to check out all the awesome artwork and we also had time to drink some beers.

All in all it was an awesome experience, just wish I could have met some SG people. I hope I can go next year again!