Yes, I've used a lyric from the same song as my last post but you'll perhaps understand why.
In the year 2000 I was living in Cardiff and wanted to get a tattoo that was representative of my time there. What felt obvious to me was that, as a Scot living in Wales, something Celtic would be perfectly appropriate. I spent months agonising over whether it would be a band, or a knot or something else entirely until I found a design of a cross I liked in a tattooists that came with the recommendation that it was the one the Welsh rugby team used. I wouldn't normally pick a tattoo from the wall of a tattoo parlour as I usually want something much more personal but this was just right.
I wanted it done on my spine with enough space above and below for anything else I wanted added later (which you will see I did indeed add in the guise of a tribal piece across my shoulders). When the tattooist asked me to check by looking into the mirror to see if I was happy with the transfer for positioning I thought it looked a tiny bit off but put that down to me twisting to see it. As it turns out I should have trusted my judgement as it was a bit out (as you'll see shortly) but I didn't actually find this out for 5 years because every time I looked at it I was still twisting to see it in the mirror. It wasn't till I got it re-done after it faded post-radiotherapy that the tattooist mentioned it was a bit off. It had also slightly distended, apparently possibly from getting very fat and then very thin rapidly from a course of steroids. So not only was it slightly off centre but it was unsymmetrical now too.
So, knowing that it was a bit wrong annoyed me a little but I figured there was nothing I could do about it. The show Tattoo Fixers changed all that. Seeing how they could remodel a bad tattoo into something so much better got me thinking, so I went into a tattoo parlour called Tribe, that had an excellent reputation, on my way back from hospital one day just to have a chat about what could be done with it. The placement and the darkness of the ink made it difficult for them but not impossible. We needed to come up with a design I liked and while they took that idea and tried to see what they could do to cover up as much of the cross as possible I would start getting it lightened with laser treatment. As a slight aside I knew from the first few minutes that I was in Tribe that it was going to be OK because two men came in off the street, one of whom wanted a tattoo of a wolf. He seemed to think he could just come in and get it that day but he was sent away with quite a lot of homework about what style he wanted and all sorts of variables. These were people who take their craft seriously. I digress. So here is what it looked like after five laser treatments.
As you can see it has already faded a lot and would continue to fade throughout the tattooing process. The lasering works by splitting the bulk colour of the original tattoo into smaller globules that the immune system can then recognise as foreign and get rid of. It also vapourises the water in your skin which stings a bit. In fact I'd have to say it stung more than the tattooing itself in my opinion. You'll also see there is a green line that marks my spine and confirms that the tattoo is off line and unsymmetrical. Maybe it's not much off as I said but it was enough to annoy a pedant like me.
The next thing was to take the original idea for a design and customise it for my more symmetrical tastes, which took this Phoenix idea
and made it into this basic design
The eagle eyed among you will see that the cross isn't completely covered but, with the ongoing fading of it allied to the notions of colour detailing going on after the main blocks of colour, there shouldn't be much of it left showing afterwards. The first session just did the outline and a wee block at the tail.
Having decided that it would be a slow process thanks to the nature of my skin the second session would then concentrate on the main body leading to this.
Another couple of weeks later, we added the wings
Another few weeks later we started on the colour detailing between the wings.
It was at this point that the tattooist, Tim, mentioned that having made the tail so much shorter than in the original drawing that there was plenty space if I did want to add something below while the other stuff healed. That got me thinking to something I had been considering for years but due to assorted health crises getting in the way I never actually acted on. I already have one (admittedly a bit wanky) philosophical quote on me - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?) is written round my right wrist - but I've always loved another quote and I had considered where I could get it done. The line goes 'Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you' and the space under the Phoenix would be perfect for it. Now, like the man who came in for his wolf tattoo, I got some homework. I had to decide if I wanted the full quote or just the first part of it, and I had to find a font I thought would be right too. That is a much harder task than you'd think, with the thousands there are to choose from. I finally stumbled across a gothic font (appropriate for the author) called Stonehenge, which allowed us all in the tattoo parlour to do Spinal Tap gags, but it also just looked perfect.
I decided to go for the full quote instead of just the first line as I knew there was space and I think it just means more. The reason I chose this particular bit of text is because it features in some of my favourite works of literature (some very heavy like the actual source material Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche and some very light indeed like Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookmyre) but also because it was something that I held to be very important when I was getting treated for my Leukaemia. I know most people like to talk about fighting Cancer but, as I have said many times before on here, I rail against such terms. To talk about somebody as being a fighter in a Cancer scenario seems redundant to me and is, to my mind at least, very much for the person saying it to make themselves feel better about the situation than for the patient. Don't get me wrong I know others who completely subscribe to the idea that you have to fight with every fibre of your being against it, and I'm not going to tell them they're wrong, but that just isn't me. I chose not to battle the monster that is Cancer for fear it would make me an embittered man. It has been commented on in fact that it had quite the opposite effect on me, and made me a nicer, more humble person. I think there's an element of truth to that. Anyway, I appear to have digressed again. Finally, it is a quote that reminds me of my mate Gav. His is not my story to share so I'll have to remain cryptic on that front I'm afraid.
Here's how it turned out in context
and a close up version to see the font better
Now I have to say it is a good thing I am a pedant as it was only just as the final transfer was being prepared that I noticed that the text was missing the word also from the final line. Now they had cut and pasted it from my email so it was my own error and I'm just glad that I caught it in time before it was put on to me permanently.
Now that the rest of my skin had healed we could do the final little bits of colouring in that would complete the job and that led to this
It's very subtle under the bright lights of the studio but the green colour going up through the main body of the Phoenix not only adds to the beauty of the piece itself but also minimises the amout of lasering that will need to be done to remove the last vestiges of the cross. It'll be a much more surgical affair than the heavy duty laser job of the first 5 sessions.
This is the pic I got taken in my room a few hours later of the whole thing because I forgot to get one of the lot done in the studio. It's not the greatest pic because of the lighting but it'll do until I go back in a few months after a decent healing time to get the lasering done.
As I said about my first visit to Tribe, I felt comfortable with the staff on all fronts and, as it has taken nearly 9 months of lasering and tattooing and all the healing time in between, I got to know the staff very well indeed. Perhaps obviously I got to know my tattooist Tim the best as we spent hours and hours together chatting about any number of topics. He is a fiercely intelligent man who gave me insights into my own condition that were so perceptive it was brilliant for me but I would also hope that he got something from talking to me as well. All the folks in there were so friendly to the assorted members of family who came with me on all my trips too - I genuinely couldn't be more thankful to them for it.
Now, this may be the end for me in terms of body art as post transplant I'll be on anti-rejection drugs for life and I may not be able to get any more tattoos done, which I am sure will make my mother happy but if in 6 months time or so I still haven't got the call for transplant I've got an idea for one to cover up some ugly scar tissue on my chest from the bone marrow transplant time. Just an idea mind.
