photo friday: tiger blue

drunk tiger kitemanly blue

manly whitenewtown tiger
I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from an post-endorphins crash... my brain has turned a little bit to sleepy mush... but you get that after sitting through a couple of hours of tattooing.

Yes, after commissioning the design from one of my favourite artists in May last year, it took until December before it was ready (and it was absolutely worth waiting for), and then in January booking my session at the tattoo parlour... and the first available appointment was today. So it's been almost eleven months in the making.

And of course, the images and title for today's post are inspired by my tattoo which was a combination of the work of one of my favourite artists and my Chinese and Western astrological symbols... the tiger, and water (for Pisces).

I was equal parts terrified and excited all morning, then talked through the design with Danica, the tattoo artist, and the colours I wanted (since the original image is just a pencil drawing).

And then we were off and running.

For anyone who hasn't been tattooed, the best way I can describe it is taking a thick, sharp pin and dragging it repeatedly across sunburnt skin. For several hours at a time. Well, that covers the line work portion anyway... I've never had a coloured tattoo before, and the colour fill and blending portion is incredibly painful.

Weirdly, it's only super painful if you're just sitting there concentrating on it... if you're chatting or whatnot, then you tend to forget (to some degree) that it's happening. Although once the tattooist starts going over the same patch of skin for the third or fourth time, then all bets are off and it's just fucking painful.

Even now it feels like I have some incredibly specifically placed sunburn at the top of my arm. But I would do it again in a heartbeat... I have a number of ideas for my next piece, but they're just a collection of random ideas and I don't quite know how they come together at this stage. Plus I know it's going to be an expensive piece, so that will definitely have to wait.

I'm really, really happy with the final design... technically I had a slightly different arrangement of colours in my mind, so it will be a couple of days before my brain gets used to what it actually looks like versus how it was in my head... but I'm so pleased.

Plus it ended up being cheaper than I was expecting it to be, which is always a bonus.

Now I just need to wait for it to heal.

Moving backwards through the week, yesterday I had my rental inspection... which was perfect... I cleaned for about four hours the day before... well, cleaned and tidied and whatnot, but the house is pretty generally clean and tidy so it wasn't overly arduous.

I also got my land agent to take away all the stuff the landlord had left behind when I moved in (rugs, a towel, a crappy 80's pastel framed print, a potplant I never remembered to water), so the "dining area" is looking a hell of a lot less cluttered, and it's good to have things that weren't mine out of the place.

And then that evening I headed off to Espionage Gallery... or as it's been renamed for the purposes of this exhibition, the Espionage Batcave. That's right... Gotham has come to Adelaide just in time for Oz Comic-Con. And Josh also managed to transform the gallery into a passable cave using nothing more than brown paper, spray paint and black garbage bags.

There were a few nice pieces, although one of the ones I could have been tempted by had already been sold. But to be honest I'm saving myself for the Lego show in a few weeks.

I spent a bit of time standing around chatting with Josh while everyone else, including a very tall and imposing Batman circulated around us.

After sticking around for a while, I wandered off to Burger Theory to try the reprisal of the Ankles Burger from the Art Burger run. This time around, the ingredients accompanying the delicious patty are, according to the boys at BT, "tangy and creamy housemade dijonnaise, gooey American cheese, crunchy salami chips, McClure's garlic pickles for some bite, and salt and vinegar crisps for...nostalgia". I wasn't a massive fan of the original, but the texture of the pickles and the crisps definitely bumped this one up a few notches.

I also finished up the third season of Veronica Mars this week, and watched the new movie. It was great seeing all the characters/actors all grown up, although some of them look pretty much exactly the same, just with slightly different hair.

The only downside is the same issue that happens with any transition from a teevee series to a movie is that you don't get the time to develop the overarching story. And that was always a thing with Veronica Mars... there was the mystery of the week, and then the series long mystery. And the movie makes the long mystery feel a little rushed.

I'll still be buying the DVD when it comes out though.

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