They say that one image describe a thousand words, but not even 10 images is able to present this amazing awesome excellent extraordinary [put in the best word you can come up with] piece of art.

Brad Bako is just an amazing artist and if you ever are around Newcastle drop by his shop. If you don´t want a tattoo, at least drop by to get one of his paintings, skateboard design etc. If you want a tattoo he has a 2-3 months waiting list so give Fat Ink a call and they will set you up.

Back to the piece I got done… The chest part was the most painful so far, specially around the nipple.. hehe. But it all came together in the end and now I have one of Brads unique art parts on my body forever, and the thought of that is amazing. Brad felt really good about the piece himself when he was done, so it is all good

We started talking a little bit about the “next piece” tho… The next big thing I want on my body is a big and bright orange Koi fish. The Koi fish represent love and friendship in Japan and that is something I want to be represented on the left side of my back. It would ofc. have to be more of a biomech style but with a pretty traditional Koi fish in the front. I want a huge blue dragon as well on the right side of my back.. but yea… we will just have to see.. First I have to take it easy for a couple of days so the one I have now get the proper healing..

To all of you who have mailed and talked to me about pictures… they will get online after family and friends get the “on skin” impression. So I guess I will upload images in 2 weeks or so.

Going to write / publish a little bit more info from the whole thing tomorrow.

I don´t think I did a proper post last time so I´m going to turn the calender back 3 months for a quick overview of the first session in the following sentences. Mr. Bako started off with 3 stencils with designs that he transferred on to me. After that there was some free hand drawing involved to fit the parts together, pen to skin style. Then he tattooed all the lines with a thin needle. Then he went over some of the lines with a thicker needle. Since this is a black/gray/skin colored tattoo the next bit was to start the shading. After a “couple” 3 hours of shading or so the top half of the sleeve was more or less shaded. This was about 8 hours or so into the feeling of a constant needle in your body I had to say stop. I guess this is nothing comparable to you war veterans or the children that die from hunger in Africa every few minutes, but this was enough pain for me.

Fast forward to todays session, session number two.

Fist Mr. Bako had to to draw the “missing” design on the inside of the arm. He, ofc. drew that with a pencil right on to the body. Then he outlined that design with a thin needle before he started the shading. About 6 hours later the shading on the bottom half of the sleeve was done. Then he went over some of the old shading and perfect-ionized some of that.

Now the the second session is done I can say that what Bako does down at Fat Ink Tattoo is beyond tattooing, he is creating exceptional art. Im not going to describe how amazing the tattoo looks so far, I´m not even going to upload images of it. They say that one image describe a thousand words, but not even 10 images is able to present this amazing awesome excellent extraordinary [put in the best word you can come up with] piece of art.

The third and final session for now is tomorrow. Then Mr. Bako is going to do all the shading for the chest piece and finish up the link between the sleeve and chest part over the shoulder.

There was a Reef festival up in Whitsundays this days.. nothing special… jsut some fireworks and a lady singing terrible tunes from a scene.

I walked a Coral Walk – 1km or so out to a very remote beach on friday.. that was more or less the most exciting thing.

November 16th:

It was time to get to the airport for the next part of my Australia journey. There is however some super exciting news about the bus trip from Airlie Beach to Mackay Airport. The bus use about 2 hours 20 mins or so on that bit and of course there was a inflight movie. The movie is called Racing Stripes staring Hayden Panettiere and Bruce Greenwood. I don´t know if it the main character is Haydens character or the Zebra. Anyway, it is a movie where all the animals are able to speak to each other and the humans have no idea, they can only hear animal sounds. The concept of the movie is that the Zebra wants to become a racing horse.

You probably get it by now that this was a SUPER EXCITING movie… I am very lucky that I am traveling Australia instead of the US. If I was traveling the US I would probably have jumped off at some supermarket, bought a gun and the decorated the supermarket wall with pieces from my head. This might have been one of the wurst movies I have seen, ever. I did not want to spoil all the power on my iPhone or iPod Nano or my Macbook since I was going to be stuck at the airport for a few hours and did not know what facilities that where available there.

Finally at the airport… I found out that there was a huge storm in Brisbane (my stop between Mackay and Newcastle) so the planes where not able to take off. This resulted in a delay on my plane for about 4-5 hours, GREAT. There was however light in the end of the tunnel.. there was free internet at the airport… That meant hours and hours of youtube video watching, just as this one:

I arrived in Brissy around 11pm and my plane to Newcastle was due 6am the following morning.

November 17th:
Arrived in Newcastle Airport, bus to Newcastle train station, picked up by the Backpacker Newcastle guys, slept almost rest of the day due to almost no sleep the last 2 days.

November 18th:
I went to Sydney this day. Read previous post…

Nothing really exciting, here is a couple of images:
 
    

November 19th:
Watched the new Bond movie and it was… pretty terrible. I was not a huge Bond fan, then I liked the last one… but this one was very bad. Not even the scene with the Austin Martin cheered my up due to destroying the car almost instantly.

Later that day I scouted the town for the following pictures:
 
                 

Tomorrow is the first of 2 big days this month… more info that and on whats next in a couple of days. Peace out!