Vegan Project - Chicken Tattoo: Part 1

Happily, yesterday was a Rex Manning Day (aka 'Tattoo Day') for me. Yay! I headed to the pool early in the morning to get in a long swim, seeing that I won't be able to interact with the chlorine water for much of next week while my ink heals (since last December, I haven't been out of the pool for more than two days at any given time, so this shall prove to be a challenge. Definitely worth it, but still, a challenge).

After finishing my lap swimming, I got ready and then hit the road to travel down to Northridge to spend the day at MD Tattoo Studio. As it always is, the my time there was so much fun and we got so much accomplished in the span of hours that I was in the shop.

Yesterday was Session 1 on the newest addition to my vegan-themed project; this time a most magnificent chicken is joining Miss Cow and Mr. Pig on my right leg.

As many of you know, Mike DeVries creates some insane stencils. After all the years I have been a client of his, I am STILL blown away when he pulls out the stencil. The amount of detail involved can show you right off the bat just how intricate of a piece each is going to be...and let's just say that Ms. Chicken pretty much takes the cake when it comes to "involved" stencils.

And so, this was the blueprint for the rest of the day. Seven hours of work went into this striking new piece yesterday. But still, another day needed to finish her all up. Even being half-way completed, it's already quite a beauty and blends so nicely set around the pig and cow pieces (oh, and above Steve's portrait too). ;) Speaking of, after Mike got to a good stopping point with the chicken, he worked for a good 1.5 hours touching up my portraits of Aidan, Shea, and Steve. They got mini-makeovers and look fantastic.

I wish I could show you the progress, but it's a little rule that I honor to not show progress pix, so give me 3-4 weeks or so and I shall have a noble chicken of the Black Cochin variety to show you.

Cluck, cluck.