A good friend and old client Dany came through to start his left upper sleeve. The famous Helguera Aztec soldier saving the aztec woman is another one of the pieces that require tedious attention to detail. Here’s a work in progress shot..

Dany’s big ass arm felt like tattooing the average thigh, the amount of space and flesh does provide good ground for this type of an image and will make a difference in the sessions to come, heres a focus shot..

And below is a quick  study in preparation for the next main study..

..just wrapped it up and headed to Detroit, stay posted it’s going to be a cold one.

The homey George came by to start his lower left sleeve off with one word..

…and Sam came through to add a little to his lower sleeve, the pit hole is always a tough spot, but Sam pulled through..

The brother Rigo has been supporting me since the lunchbox days of my work, and thought I’d show some back for his newborn baby boy, London, a gift for his mother, charcoal toned, 16″x20″…

…c’mon–life can’t be dark all the time, got to have a little light to balance things out. Weak-minded dead beat dadies, and self-destructive baby mama’s are so common we take it to be normal now. It’s time to renew the basics of family…

..speaking of which, the brother Dave flew out from Vermont to finish up his sleeve. The turtle concept originating from his love of music from The Grateful Dead, and a japanese twist to it. 

..and Caesar came by to do a little on Caesar, we got special  plans for this one so stay posted.

The homey Steve came through for another session to his left upper sleeve, only this time he chose something a little more internal for an image–himself! This is definitely a unique and fun piece, the concept being his more crafty side to himself, and the continuing life and death theme with the classic rose and skull icon.

This piece still needs one more sitting, check out Steve below..

 I have to bow in honor to the master Cartoon  for being my motivation behind the clown makeup. Toons has been a huge influence since my beginning, and he has managed to truly craft and fine tune the iconic images of the clown, broads, cars and everything tied to the L.A. lifestyle. Like Jose, Toons is one of the reasons why my generation is here. Salute goes out to Toons, and Steve for being a fool!

To recap, I started this study not too long ago for the big homey Chuco, the great collector, influence and loving figure of the tattooing community who recently passed. 

I wanted to do basic documentation to show one of the many approaches that I would take to do a basic painting. Two main things I tried to focus on was manipulation of values within his features, and to capture the feeling of Chuco from the images taken before he passed. 18″x24″ oil on canvas stage1.

Paintings, like large scale tattoos for me is always a process. This painting still needs a couple glazes to get things to read a little more dramatically, one thing I enjoyed messing with was the texture on this piece. A mix of gesso, and a shit load of molding paste and alot of oil paint adds alot of weight to the look of the piece…but also made things alot more difficult to paint…

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I awlays trip on the old masters like Rembrandt and Sargeant, people who broke all the formal ways of doing doings and mastered light. It was said Rembrandt eventually became dead broke toward the end of his career, all he had for studio light was a fucking candle, and burnt sienna and raw umber to paint with…

So this was the initial charcoal comp, a very rough but important foundation to get me to the painting. Chuco, may you ride in PEACE, and bless the tattoo community you left behind, thank you for the inspiration. Stay posted.

The homey Jonathan came by and began his chest starting off with the left plate. We chose a classic old school angel kneeling protecting his heart…

Stay posted to see his evil side.