The brother Mike came through to begin his upper right side piece~first tattoo.

We got a good start to a stronger collection down the road-paying tribute to his family and culture.

The image focuses on the split-second right before the tiger takes his prey. Unlike like other predators, tigers are known to hunt alone.

Keep a look out.

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”  ~Picasso

The homey Herbert came through from Long Island to begin the collection - upper left sleeve.

You never know how precious life really is until life itself is almost taken from you. With Herbert’s story, near death experiences has been a common theme.

But when death came to collect, the higher powers always had their hand in either preventing or saving Herbert’s life. And as a result, gave him a fresh perspective to revamp his direction in life. The piece serves as another reminder-although we were raised in the darkness, the change happens in the light.

Another collection to keep an eye on.

Bryan came through to begin his first tattoo~ upper left chest.

He wanted to focus on representing life’s fluidity through humility. Also breaking out of the traditional look of the Japanese koi fish prints, we decided to take a more natural approach.

Keep a look out in the future east-coast visits, Bryan’s just getting started.

It was a long day. I’ve got to say –L.A. will always be home, but N.Y’s beauty is on another level.

We spent most of the day making runs through the burrows.

Not sure if my boys had a happy ending?

After little italy, chinatown, St. Marks, Hoboken etc we headed to Soho to go support the brothers over at The Hundreds grand opening of their new store.

Bobby, Ben and the whole crew have always been a big inspiration, not just in what they’ve created but the way they create. I’ve never seen a more coordinated, humbling, and organic group of people that take time to put in the work for quality–together. With that level of hard work and passion, anything’s possible.

Perfect.

And with the homies, it’s all about the longterm, the path onward is set with more good things to come, and NY is just another building block to the future. Congrats to all the brothers of TH.

Speaking of building blocks-back in Jersey at Syndicated, we started off the first session with Chris who came through to continue his collection. You might remember his piece from our last visit…

He wanted to continue the Fu Dog piece we started by tying in the Great Wall of China to an existing  dragon piece he had years ago.

The Great Wall is a classic symbol for strength, and an overall ambition that extends beyond the people of Chinese culture. It’s stated that several thousand people died from the process of building the wall and many are actually buried in the core base sections of the structure. But like with every big task, you always have to be willing to make sacrifice.

And we end at the beginning foundation of the wall-lower upper sleeve. Chris wanted to put emphasis on the  process of the accomplishment by focusing on the construction.

A big thanks to Chris aka ‘Shaou-lin’, who sat through the construction like a soldier.

The homey Freddie Gibbs came through to plot the next project. Stay tuned…

Justin came through for a second sitting….