Borneo Tattoo Convention Day 1

DAY 1

What can I say ?!

It was great being in Sarawak for the 2nd International Borneo Tattoo Convention 2007 !! I wished it never ended so fast. It was the best experience and being able to be tattooed traditionally by Enersto himself, from the Borneo Head Hunters, was a great honour. Walking around Bukit Aup Jubilee Park was the most physically tormented thing I ever did !! It was such a huge place and climbing up endless fleets of stairs was madness. I will tell you all about it as we go by...

Day 1 of the convention...

I was able to meet Alex Nadini of Italy and it was awesome to be side by side with one of the world's best !

Borneo Design being done by Rotary Tattoo Machine

FreeWind of USA doing his thang ya'all..

Freewind tattooing traditionally with the help of his wife...

Later that evening, I was traditionally tattooed by Ernesto and it drew a large crowd witnessing it. The whole event was videographed and photographed by the press for magazines and documentaries and such... My oh My, was I excited or what ?!

After close to a hour, the tattoo was done. And I had another day to go for my other fist to be tattooed again..hehe !!

Day B4 The Trip

Hello Boys and Girls !!

I will be flying off to Sarawak tommorrow for the 2nd International Borneo Tattoo Convention 2007.

I will be back on the 2nd July 2007 and business will resume as usual.

2nd Borneo Tattoo Convention

I will be away for the 2nd Borneo International Tattoo Convention 2007, from 29th June - 1st July which will be held in the Sibu district of Sarawak, eastern Malaysia.

The 2nd Borneo International Tattoo Convention 2007, will bring together international acclaimed tattoo artist from all over the world and also local talents, whereby the Art of tattooing will be highlighted by traditional performances, traditional music, cultural dances, tribal peace offerings to the spirits and parades from all the major tribal cultures and what is left of the elders who were tattooed the way it was a long time ago … so in other word bringing you back in time when the tattoos worn by the individual glorifies the life of the oneself.

The Sarawak Borneo tattoo culture has been known all over the world because of its cultural and traditional roots, and as an Iban who comes from a culture and tradition and being Sarawakian, I present to you the 2nd International Borneo Tattoo Convention to the world and all Sarawakians, I hope that it will bring back to life a lifeless body of this dying culture.

Thank you for the support

Ernesto
www.borneoheadhunter.com

katanka

These two photos were posted in BMEzine's gallery with caption of "katanka".


http://www.bmeink.com/A70611/high/bmepb536572.jpg
http://www.bmeink.com/A70611/high/bmepb536571.jpg

I have no idea what exactly these characters' significance with each other.

"Fuck, Everyone!"

"Fuck, Everyone!" is exactly what this June 11th photo's caption said.


http://www.bmeink.com/A70611/high/bmepb537412.jpg

Don't forget to thank the artist:

Luke "Strycknine" Davison, "Drag'in Ink,Dermagraphics", San Pablo Bay-Area,California.

Happy Bday - Immortal Tattoos

Immortal Tattoos turns 1 today on the 14th June 2007. It has been one wild ride for the past one year and hopefully many more years of wild rides to come !! I thank my family, all my friends, my clients and everyone else for the surpport.

May Immortal Tattoos be Immortal !!

Phoenix Part II

In my post about Phoenix in May, you guys might have read about the legends and myth on the Legendary bird. I happen to do one again today, which took a toll on me. Sometimes, most of the customers don't realise that their skin tone plays a part on how the tattoo turns out. And of course, being a professional in this business, its your duty to edcuate them. Most of the time, you can succeed in it, but bad times do roll in too...

A customer of mine, being in the midtone skin wanted to get a phoenix done, which obviously needs colours, but then again there are also option to have it done in black and grey. But sadly, colours won't show much of how it will be on a lighter toned skin.

Talking about the colours that would match his skin tone, I had to really crack my head...

So after close to 2hrs, when the dust has settled from the wings of the Phoenix, I called it a day with some happy endings...

Aum Tattoos

Aum - is a mystical or sacred syllable in the Dharmic religions. It is placed at the beginning of most Hindu texts as a sacred exclamation to be uttered at the beginning and end of a reading of the Vedas or previously to any prayer or mantra. The Mandukya Upanishad is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable.

The syllable Aum is first described as all-encompassing mystical entity in the Upanishads. Today, in all Hindu art and all over India and Nepal, 'Aum' can be seen virtually everywhere, a standard sign[citation needed] for Hinduism and its philosophy and mythology.

Aum is not a word but rather an intonation, which, like music, transcends the barriers of age, race, culture and even species. It is made up of three Sanskrit letters, aa, au and ma which, when combined together, make the sound Aum or Om. It is believed to be the basic sound of the world and to contain all other sounds. If repeated with the correct intonation, it can resonate throughout the body so that the sound penetrates to the centre of one's being, the atman or soul.

In modern time, Aum tattoos have become very popular with the crowd, regardless of thier age, sex or even religion. It has become the most common design to my knowledge and seriously I have lost count on how many of my clients carry that sacred symbol.

Mother and Child

Guess who walked in again today? Its the same guy who had his tiger done the other day...Hehe!!

My returning customer within few days apart. How cool is that? Ok lets get back to what he wanted shall we?

This time, he didn't want a eagle that looks like a rooster or a dog looking like a wild boar, but instead, he wanted a tattoo of a mother carying her child...Sweet huh? But then again, his angular looking imagination came into discussion again...And what can I say?

Anyway, he did the tattoo out of his love for his mum and wanted his mum's name in Tamil. Staying true to his roots, I should say...

Dragon Bender

http://www.bmeink.com/A70604/high/bmepb530557.jpg

This June 4th tattoo was posted in BMEzine's gallery with caption of:

"Dragon" by Stephanie Campbell, Dragon FX, Kingsway, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Don't forget to check out Dragon FX's introduction movie, where it says:

"Whether you are getting a tattoo or piercing, you can be confident that our staff would go out of their way to serve your needs. After all, you are going to be wearing our work and we want you to be proud of it."

Tiger

I had a customer walk in today, wanting to get a tiger on his arm. Explaining to me that he wants his tiger to be fierce. Typical tattoo as always. Well, that is what I thought. He then goes on, saying that he wants the tiger's body to face a certain angle and the facial expression to be in a certain angle, which of course, will be near impossible for the tiger to be in an awkward position in reality, unless its a tiger practising yoga, having its body to be so flexible...God !

After that is done and going through some of the designs, he said, "I want my tiger to look like a gorilla!" Come on !! How can you have a tiger that looks like a gorilla? Its either a tiger or a gorilla ! What a day to start my week with !!

At this point of time, I knew I had to step in and explain to him in my point of view, that what he is imagining is nowhere going to look like a tiger. He was on the darker skin tone, so colours won't work well. He did look kinda disappointed, but I assured him that it will turn out well.

And this is how it turned out...

Oliver's Chinese Arm Tattoo

My friend Alan writes:

Hi Tian,

I think www.rankmytattoos.com is a gold mine of silly Chinese and Japanese tattoos. Check out this one:

http://www.rankmytattoos.com/Virginia/Fredericksburg/5556.html

You will notice that it says (from top to bottom):

銭

ぶく

あ

痛い

恋

At first, it looks like just random gibberish, until you realize that it was actually all tattooed in inverted order, bottom to top rather than top to bottom!

I think it was supposed to mean “Love Hurts” followed by “Easy Money."

The silly client or tattooist must have just looked in a Japanese dictionary and found the words “love” (恋), “hurt” (痛い) and “easy money” (あぶく銭, also written 泡銭) and then strung them all together, grammar be damned, breaking the text in strange places and, to top it all off, tattooed the characters in the wrong order.

All in all, it is a piece de resistance of ludicrous, terrible Japanese tattoo work, although the characters themselves are correct and written well.

Thanks for all the hard work as usual.

Alan

New Month - June

Here we are again...

Let's recap what I shared with you all in the last month of May.

- The Phoenix
- The Cross
- Highly Intoxicated Customers
- The Hannya Mask
- Tribalistic Dragons
- Babe of the Month - I know you will like this
- Custom Made "Henna-Like" Butterfly

A new month and a whole lot of new stuffs will be going on. I have lined up a few things to share with you guys and I hope, I will have more to post in here.

God, Bless my Immortality !!