Chefdetattoo's Blog

Pacific Ocean tattoo

chefdetattoo — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:34:45 +0000

Tiki masks are carved wooden masks representing the gods of the Hawaiian and Polynesian culture (Pacific Ocean tattoo style). They used to have different purposes such as warding off evil spirits and even improve the fertility of the owners! They hold such high importance in Polynesian culture that, along with other Tiki sculptures have become defining symbols of the Tiki culture.

Many of the traditional masks are designed based on the four main gods. Kane is the god of the sun and natural life, Ku is the god of war, Lono the god of peace, wind, rain, sport and fertility, Kanaloa is the god of the ocean. In Western tattoo designs the hidden meaning is usually not there any more but they have the looks.

This customer had a small tattoo with a colorful palm tree, sea and sun. In order to get it fit to this design I choose an overdone colorful mask. So you get more the idea of the colorful tiki cocktail bars in the sixties. The designs are still very popular with surfers because they give that tropical feeling of sun, sand and sea.

FAQ, do not read this message

chefdetattoo — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:40:26 +0000

With some regularity I ask myself; “do people become dumber?”. Obviously many people only use the internet to view photos. And if they see something they don’t know or understand then immediately and without hesitating they press the mail button! Old people of course, who really don’t understand anything from the www (=world wide web). No damn it are usually just the young ones, the generation who grew up with the Internet. Almost every website has a button with FAQ (= Frequently Asked Questions) but that seems obviously too simple or too hard to use. No directly press the email button and just ask what ever comes into your mind. Never a moment of considering that question might be asked daily. Every day we get the question, ‘how much does a tattoo cost? ” Funny is that we never get the question if we work safely and hygienically. Possible they have been reading that part or, what I suspect, that nobody is interested in that kind of information or they just don’t care. But what does a small tattoo cost or do we tattoo a person when he/she is 14 years old… that’s a real burning question. In short .. Please please please read the FAQ section and if, after reading that part, you are still having unanswered questions, yes than feel free to use the email button. But you write this post very unfriendly? That doesn’t matter because nobody is gonna read this message… its starting with the words FAQ ;-)

A Cartoon tattoo

chefdetattoo — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:07:51 +0000

If you see a grown man with a tattoo of a monkey, from a cartoon, then you’re first thoughts will be that he has to be a very childish and that he must have been pretty drunk when he took that tattoo. This is a good example that the first impression of someone can be sometimes the wrong impression.

This particular customer is a real big music fan of Louis Prima, a star from a distant past. In the forties and fifties he caused a furore as a trumpet player, singer and entertainer. One of his most famous songs is Buona Sera. Later he played more a mix of rock ‘n’ roll and Dixieland, the type of music later refressed by bands like the Stray Cats.

Oh and because you don’t do portraits tattoos you just made him an monkey? That would indeed have been an option but we are not talking about just a monkey tattoo but we are speaking about King Louie the orangutan from the Jungle Book cartoon from Walt Disney. And the voice of this monkey King Luie is the voice of Louis Prima.

Look this is a good way to have a good story along a simple tattoo of a cartoon monkey.

Give this way of thinking a change when choosing your next tattoo.

Too old for a tattoo

chefdetattoo — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:50:35 +0000

I often hear people of just 30 or 40 years old, saying they are too old for a tattoo. Where is the vitality of these people? I hear others say when you are “old” a tattoo looks ugly. For all these ‘hedonists’ I have news.

Several years ago I made a tattoo on this man in remembrance of his passed away daughter. Now some years later, at age 72, he returned to our studio too show his tattoo. The tattoo looks perfect and he is still very happy with it. So pleased that he asked me to put some more roses on both his arms. This is an example of a man still in the middle of life and enjoying each new day.

You’re as old as you feel yourself. Some feel old at age 30th and another at 72 years feels far from old. As long as your health permits “carpe diem” seize the day and enjoy life. Lot’s of respect for this 72 year old senior.

Lady of the Garter

chefdetattoo — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:00:03 +0000

This customer wanted a tribal around her thigh, but luckily she gave me the confidence to make a little more feminine arts (if simple) and a few roses to get a more feminine effect. Incidentally a garter is nothing new it has existed for centuries. But a garter tattooed you see only rarely.

A garter was in the Middle Ages a leather band that prevent the stockings, by male and female, would descend. Later when the band was made of elastic materials it got also more beautiful and more female ornaments.

There have been times that a woman absolutely not would go on the street without her stockings and of course with the garter to keep it all high. The skirts became shorter so the garter was going higher on the leg. It became belonging part to the lingerie section. Lingerie is meant to pimp up a naked woman. Like ornaments on your dessert, it does not change the taste but it looks so much more tastefull.

The Order of the Garter is one of Europe’s oldest chivalric orders. The primary purpose of the Order is to bind the powerful nobility of knights to the king. The perfect symbol for the Order of the Garter is a blue velvet garter with the motto “shame upon him who thinks evil upon it”.

A tiger in bed

chefdetattoo — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:36:03 +0000

Every tattoo artist has ever tattooed a black panther, sometimes as simple cover on a name but a tiger is much less often chosen. Really strange because a tiger is much more colorful with a bit of skill also fine to use as a cover.

This year I luckily tattooed already some tigers, possible because 2010 is the Chinese year of the tiger. I do not think this is the reason but it is a nice extra knowledge.

Tigers in Asian cultures associated with power, cruelty, passion and sensuality, beauty and speed, cruelty and wrath. Would this be the reason that it is usually women who choose a tiger tattoo? We all know tattoos tell something about the personality of the wearer!

Anyway it is better to have lived one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep.

Free publicity

chefdetattoo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:36:53 +0000

There are always customers you will never forget. So is there this Danish customer. For years, on his holiday, takes a tattoo by me.

Until recently, every half hour the train with tourists passing to our studio in summer season fully loaded with tourists. I was already a few hours tattooing this customer. Our conversations were, as always, on various subjects. He is an businessman himself and one of those conversation topics was advertising and publicity. He explained me why this is a very important factor. Important to stand out in the gray field and making people attended to you, so they cant forget you. Slowly my appetite became increasingly stronger and we decided to take a short lunch break. Food and coffee for new energy. My wife always makes a custom lunch package for me so I do not get more bigger. I began to open the package to see what my lunch would be.

The customer had made his lunch package in his hotel and started to peel a banana. At this same moment he heard the train coming and run, in his underwear to the front-door. With the banana in his mouth standing in the open front-door he yelled to me “while you eat your lunch, I will do some publicity for you and make sure the people won’t forget this parlor”. Luckily I was quick enough to make a photo of this moment. Days later when I was thinking about this moment I still needed to laugh.

Needle Phobia Hype

chefdetattoo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Not only the tattoo picture makes you’re proud but the whole tattoo ritual. It is a courage test along with a victory. It is therefore quite used, in ancient times, to people with tattoos had respect. This tradition started when the person was going from childhood to adult. The traditional process of tattooing was a ritual. They gave the tribe member a lot of respect.

A painful courage trial rewarded with a personal victory.

Of course times have changed and we create tattoos with a machine and the tattoo is much clearer and done faster, less painful but still painful. The rewarded feeling of victory is unchanged.

During a journey as a reminder, with friends or alone, the end or start of a new beginning of a period in your life or just because you like it. You do not know how the feeling will be, how painful it is exactly, nobody can describe it, you have to overcome this uncertainty. This spiritual victory is called; character.

But what did you overcome when you have used an anesthetic? Were is your moment of victory using an anesthetic? You know in advance that you will feel nothing, you have nothing to overcome and there is no victory. You have a picture on your body without any suffering. Nothing to be proud about!

With all due respect, I understand that there will be people who have a traumatic experience for needles. But in recent weeks, I hear more and more often “I want a tattoo but I’m afraid of needles” as if it’s a hype. The question for anesthesia from women as also from ‘men’. I see a trend at work that they already have an anesthetic cream smeared, obviously at the expense of the tattoo quality, but even worse “how can these people ever be proud of their tattoos?

If you needed anesthesia to have a tattoo done, or if your husband, your wife, your mother or father needed to hold your hand… you’ll never deserve the respect of the Tattooed tribe.

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow!

Have a look at this ‘drama-queen’

Faith

chefdetattoo — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:38:49 +0000

Tattoo lovers during a holiday visit a tattoo studio just to take a look at the tattoo work and the studio, many of these have not the intention to take a tattoo. So also didn’t have this Dutch couple from Rotterdam.

She only wanted some stars on the inside of her arm! She was certainly in the belief that she absolutely wanted nothing else than stars. I offered her to draw for free a tattoo idea on her arm. She knew for sure nobody would convince her to step away from her stars idea on her inside arm. I made a few gracefully curved lines with a few little stars …. and she loved it. She was absolutely convinced this was more creative and more feminine than her own idea. Surprised I had convince her so easily, that there is more than stars, she made an appointment for the tattoo.

Her hubby (i love this word) said that he had a sort of tribal tattoo that his brother had designed. His sister, his brother and he had all three, this same design. In this case something obviously very special to them. Ever he would certainly have a other tattoo, but at the moment he had no idea. He showed me his tattoo and it was a bit lost in the middle of his arm. I saw the challenge to draw around it, so that in future he could consider this idea. He did not want that a other tattoo touch the tattoo designed by his brother. I promised i wouldnt. I made a rough sketch around his tattoo and let him have a look in the mirror and right away he was very enthusiastic. He also saw that his arm looked more dressed. He made an appointment.

Sometimes it’s just good as a tattoo artist get’s a little confidence and you let him have a tattoo idea draw at your body. It always looks much better than on apiece of paper. Continue to pay attention that the tattoo artist also has the experience as a tattoo artist. It is not always that if anyone can draw he also can make a professional tattoo … Always look at the pictures of the tattoo artist his photo work and remember a tattoo is forever.

Oriental mythology

chefdetattoo — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:18:57 +0000

A tattoo is whatever it means to you. Many traditional tattoos do have historical symbolism, such as the koi fish, but in all reality the symbolism is unique to every person.

In recent years I often put a koi/karp inspired by traditional Japanese tattoos. Through my many years of experience I have the necessary knowledge about the meanings of these traditions and stories. Isn’t it beautiful when your tattoo has a story that is based on your personal life. Not only the fish but also the flowers and the season in the design can give a completely different meaning. Especially with larger tattoos it is beautiful as the design fits in the bodypart and also has a natural way of movement with your body movements. For everyone I always make a new design that exactly fits to the body shape of the customer and tell what the meanings are, processed in the design.

The Koi Fish on the photo I have made for a talented Dutch free fighter who lives here in the Algarve and regularly participates in Free Fight Championship in Portugal. This personal koi fish is certainly an aid in his victories.

Short note to all those Miami Ink reality show fans; “It is impossible to make such a tattoo in half an hour”. TV reality and real reality are two totally different things. Someone who can finish a tattoo this size, in half an hour is not a tattoo artist but a magician.