Vincent Impresses with a Hanuman Back Piece (Tattoosday Goes to Philly)

Last weekend at the 20th Annual Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention (@villainarts), I met Vincent, who shared this amazing back piece:

This phenomenal work depicts the Hindu deity Hanuman and was created by tattooist Eric Backlund (@sketchisms) from Skin Illustrations (@skinillustrations) in Cookstown, New Jersey.

I mean, this is just amazing and seeing this kind of masterful work is one of the main reasons one goes to tattoo shows.

Thanks to Vincent for sharing this spectacular back tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Brooke and Josh, Ganesh and Ram

With 2017 upon us, we've still got some stragglers from 2016, but we're also celebrating. Later this year, Tattoosday will be celebrating a landmark. Tattoosday will be Ten!

That's practically venerable in blogyears - and to help celebrate we'll be revisiting some of our old contributors and see what's new on their skin.

She may not realize it, but this celebration of sorts was inspired by Brooke, a friend and former colleague, who first appeared on Tattoosday here in 2007 and again here, in 2008.

Last month Brooke sent me photos of her new tattoo, and her husband Josh's, as well.

Let's check out Brooke's first:

Brooke and Josh got tattooed on a trip to India, so it only seemed fitting that their new body art have deep roots in this wonderful country's culture.

Brooke went into greater detail with me:

"For Me, Ganesh is my favorite deity in Hinduism. He's the remover of obstacles and is known for wisdom. In total, I've now spent 5 weeks in India and felt it would be good to commemorate my time there by getting a tattoo of my favorite idol."

She credited Vikas Milani from Body Canvas Mumbai (@bodycanvastattooart) as the artist that tattooed her Ganesh.

Vikas Milani tattoos Brooke while her husband Josh looks on

As for Josh's new tattoo, check out this beautiful work:

Brooke explained that "Josh loves the story of Lord Rama or 'Ram.' Ram epitomizes everything Josh strives to be: The perfect Husband, Teacher, Son and Brother."

After his tattoo was done, Brooke and Josh hopped in an auto rickshaw with Shyam Waghmare (@shyam_waghmare), his artist, and get professional pictures taken at a photo studio. This is the result, in stunning three-panel perspective:

Brooke estimated that Josh's Ram tattoo took about twenty hours in all.

Thanks to Brooke and Josh for sharing these wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday. And a special thanks to Brooke for being one of our earliest contributors, back when Tattoosday was in its infancy. We're blessed to have Brooke and Josh helping us celebrate our tenth year of publication!

This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Bruno, World Traveler, Shares Two Impressive Tattoos

On a lovely fall day, back in October, I met Bruno on 32nd Street, just south of Greeley Square.

This was the tattoo on his calf that caught my eye and inspired me to stop him:

Bruno told me he was "travelling the world, trying to get some good waves everywhere I go." He had this Hannya mask done "back in Brazil, four years ago,"

But, despite spotting the mask on his leg, he was more proud to show me his latest tattoo, still healing on his thigh:

This tattoo on his thigh was done in Indonesia. He identified it as "Barong, a god from the Hindu-Balinese religion." It was inked at Shotonk Tattoo, by Shotonk, who Bruno said is "one of the best tattoo artists in Bali."

He added, that Barong is "one of the protector gods for the island, so I really feel like he's going to be protecting me in all my journeys."

Thanks to Bruno for sharing his cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! We wish him safe travels as he journeys the earth, looking for those awesome waves.

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Renee's Feathered Serpent

I was walking down 31st Street in Manhattan when a woman walked by with a hummingbird and flower on her left shoulder. I turned back to talk to her and I was stunned to see a bright colorful tattoo spanning the top of her back> I called after her and had a nice chat.

To my delight, Renee was my familiar with the site, as her artist, Joy Rumore, had just been featured on Tattoosday here. Taking a photo of the tattoo in question was not possible due to the presence of clothing covering sections of it, but I gave Renee my card and asked her to keep in touch. However, after a few messages on Twitter, not only did I have the link to photos of the tattoo from the artist's blog, I also had an open dialogue with Renee, who explained the tattoo for me.

As Joy says on her original post here, "All hail the mighty Kukulcan!":

I asked Renee to elaborate on why she got this incredible tattoo across her back. I'll let her words speak for themselves:

"I got this feathered serpent tattoo when I advanced to candicacy in my doctoral program where I study Aztec art. I think we did it over three or four 90-minute sessions ... The feathered serpent was an old Mesoamerican god, a version of which dates back to the Olmecs (about 400 BCE) and is seen at a number of Mexican sites like Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Templo Mayor in Mexico City. The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl which translates from Nahuatl (their spoken language) into bird-snake. Joy refers to him on her blog as Kukulcan, which is the version that is seen at Chichen Itza in the Yucatán.

I wanted a tattoo of a feathered serpent because he so relevant to the Aztecs and they took great care in carving beautiful stone images of the animal.  I also knew of Joy's penchant for amazing feather work, and I knew this would be a good match.  I brought Joy a series of images, one from a mural at Teotihuacan, one from a Mixtec manuscript and another of an Aztec stone carving of a feathered serpent.  She used those and her knowledge of imagery from the Yucatan to create a more composite image of the god."

 A huge thanks to Renee and to Joy at Twelve 28 Tattoo for their cooperation in making this post possible!