a dose of cirematology: Project Koi

The past few weeks I have been working on a tattoo whenever I get some free time at work and at home. 2 weekends ago, I started doing the real thing, starting with the outline.

After spending more than an hour prepping the station (cleaning, sterilizing and making sure everything is in place) I move on to apply the stencil to the area which is gonna be tattooed. I'm not sure why (maybe the quality of the stencil paper) the stencil won't stay on. After a couple of rub with antiseptics, the stencil were wiped off the skin which was bad. After all the anticipation of finally getting the artwork done, it would be a depressing to postphone it again. It has been 6 months since I said yes to doing the tattoo.

A few cigarettes later, I came to the conclusion of sketching the artwork on the arm, fuck the stencil. This is kinda risky, as some of you know, I'm not the best freehand sketcher in the world. I thought, fuck it, let's give it a try. With a marker pen in one hand and my sketch in the other, I started scribbling with structure of the Koi fish followed by the waves then the details. The hardest part was the head and the eyes. Getting them the right size and not look like a sweet potato took me a while but after trying a few times, I managed to sketch something half decent.

After the little drama, the outlining process went on without any problem. I must admit, I was a bit nervous in the beginning but as soon as I started tattooing, time just buzz by and before I know it, it was 2pm, time to take a quick break and have something to eat. 15 minutes later, I was back inflicting pain again. The whole outline process took a little more than 2 hours which wasn't bad. I was happy with the outcome, so I wrapped it up for the day, sterilized the tattooed area again and clean down the work station. The rest of that day, my mind was fully occupied with the possibilities of colours and shading techniques, what would look good and what would work on the tattoo. Pretty much everything about what's the next session gonna be like.

Yesterday was the pre-planned day to do the colours and shading. It would be the make or break session. I started doing the usual set up and without any hitch, the shading process begins. Started off with the darker grey area then moved on to the lighter grey. The shading turned out a little darker than I wanted but it's still not bad because after it heals, the colours will be lighter. This is because when the ink is applied to your skin, your skin tends to swell a little and you do bleed. This makes the colours darker than it looks, so I wasn't worried about the darkness of the grey.

After the shading, I moved on to the red, followed by the yellow. You might not see much of the yellow on the Koi in the pictures but trust me, adding the yellow to the scales and fin areas made a huge difference. Then at the end, white is added to highlight certain parts of the Koi and waves. I must give credit to Peter for sitting through the process without much complain even though I know how painful it must've been. I tried to be as gentle as possible but sometimes I just have to do what I have to do.

Five hours later, my legs were a bit numb, Peter's arm were swelling up, I know it's time to call it the day. The tattoo is looking pretty much like how I wanted it (not 100% though, I would give myself 70%). There are a quite a lot of work to do yet, more things to be added to the back of the arm and definitely need to do a touch up.

Anyway, stay tune for updates on this project of mine. Till next time folks...